


would you share your flaws with me? (let me know)

by far2late



Series: honesty [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abuse, Age Swap, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Butcher Army, Child Abuse, Crying, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Fluff, Gaslighting, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Manipulation, Mental Breakdown, Other, Protective TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, Sad, Sad Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Harm, Technoblade Hears Voices (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit Friendship, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, no beta i never beta ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:49:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 46,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28438659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far2late/pseuds/far2late
Summary: “Dream’s voice was lilting behind his back as Techno moved to chop down the tree closest to him, netherite axe in hand. “Have you set your spawn, Techno?”The teen snorted a little, a chuckle escaping him as he blinked and moved on, answering with a bit of surprise in his voice. “Did you forget already? It was the first thing you had me do when you get here, besides-”Techno jolted forward as a small gasp escaped him, glancing down to see the shine of a netherite blade stick out of him, flames licking at the edges as it was slid out, the teen collapsing to his knees without the support.”ortechno, sixteen and exiled from l’manberg, has a bad time during his banishment
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: honesty [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097297
Comments: 904
Kudos: 1753





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i have been obsessed with the concept of age swapped tommy and techno for so long now please help me read this and weep with me

Ever since he was young, there was one constant that Techno knew would always ring true in their little family of four, no matter what happened and how far everyone fell from grace. It didn’t matter whether they were far from home or on opposite ends of the globe from each other, the only constant was that  _ They stick together, and stay together when it all comes down to them or nothing.  _

It was enforced for a while, but it wasn’t the type of rule that someone would speak aloud. It wasn’t ever made official, nor was it scribbled on the walls of their spruce home like it was gospel or something straight out of the Archives. Techno felt that made the feeling more meaningful when they didn’t have to have a specific thing to point to and tell them they had to care. Maybe it was something of his Piglin nature that raised him to believe it, but it was still a moot point when his human features beat out the Piglin ones. 

  
The most he had to prove he was from the Nether was red eyes and pointed ears that were tinged pink on the ends, providing ample space for him to pierce them the way he had wanted to when he was fourteen and thought it was cool after Wilbur did it, though he never expressed that sentiment to the man himself. It was a bit embarrassing to admit to his older brother that he looked up to him when it came to the type of family they had, especially when taking into account how Tommy acted in making fun of Techno without anything to work with. 

Being the youngest of the group was something that he had hated with a burning passion, and something the voices always made fun of him for. As if he could control his age and become eight years older to be eldest to both Tommy and Wilbur, let alone just one of them. If he wanted to be older than Tommy, the goal was probably five years, though it still seemed like such a large time frame to him that he didn’t even try to imagine it for the sake of Techno’s sanity. No, instead he let himself be rid of his hubris and prove himself through combat and trials that ‘kids his age’ shouldn’t have been participating in. 

He competed in the Crimson Trials, he beat Dream in a duel to near-death, he had collected a record for his legendary status in Hypixel tournaments and a reputation for his infallibility through countless illegal games of Bedwars that Phil probably would\ve killed him for attending if he hadn’t been successful and safe in the process. Techno’s juvenile success was one thing he had upon Wilbur and Tommy, though it felt like the two older brothers had despised him for it rather than gaining a new respect for the work he put into everything he did. 

Techno supposed that it was the fact he decided that it would be no use to try and grow closer to them when they were practically pushing him out of their little circle of secrecy. It was what had pushed him to become closer to their father figure rather than the two of them, which in turn took Phil’s attention away from Wilbur and Tommy, though he hadn’t known that. It was just a never-ending circle of Tommy and Wilbur vying for Phil’s attention while Techno looked for theirs and fell back on Phil for the support he craved. 

Despite all this, the group of them had been close enough while growing up. While the good memories didn’t outweigh the bad, they were certainly tender enough to have gained a small place in Techno’s heart that he wouldn’t let anyone touch, not even the voices in their attempt to drive him away from his family to become even stronger. The sixteen-year-old knew that he would be able to make it on his own just from past tournament winnings he had stashed away and hidden, but it was something akin to the sentimentality of his childhood that kept him with Phil, even when Tommy and Wilbur had gone off to make their own country in the middle of nowhere. 

While they had done that, Techno had stayed close by Phil’s side as he resigned from his role as leader of the Antarctic Empire, rescinding it to one of his most trusted allies that were qualified for the role of leadership. Phil made sure to specify that he would be coming around to see how things were going now and then, but he had full trust in his friend and his ability to lead how he would see fit. There were no bitter ends to tie, but Techno could see the way that his leadership in the Antarctic Empire had affecting him physically and mentally. 

There were times where Techno would see Phil hunched over the side of his bed in pain, wings trembling from how much surveillance he had to do to make sure the group of them would be safe. The promise of a chance to groom the older man’s feathers was enough to soothe his fears back then, but when Techno grew older and more understanding of politics, he could see how his father figure’s eyes seemed more tired day-by-day and how snappish he grew. 

  
The last straw was probably when he had come home bloody and wrapped up in bandages, wings restrained with medical things with the excuse that there was just a simple political dispute with Jerome. The man had been one of Phil’s closest friends, and for Techno to even hear the implication that it was him that had hurt Phil, he was ready to storm the man’s kingdom himself, only to be held back by Phil and his quiet promise that he would be resigning soon. 

_ To spend more time with his family, _ Techno had thought bitterly as Tommy and Wilbur left, waving away at the pair from a boat leaving the docks. 

When Techno had first gotten the letter from Wilbur and Techno that they needed help in Pogtopia, or L’manberg, or whatever they had called their new country, he thought it was some sort of cruel joke. The pair of them had abandoned him for nearly a year with no contact and only Phil, just to double back and contact him the moment they were unmatched. Techno had almost turned down in spite, if not for the fact that Phil had seen the letter and he didn’t want to disappoint the man directly. 

His time in Pogtopia was nothing short of routine for him, if not stretched out over a few days. The same routine he would take when he was preparing for the Crimson Trials, he repeated here, mostly spending his time farming materials for the group of them to use. For the letter the pair of them sent, they seemed fairly backed up in terms of allies. Techno had wondered for one selfish moment if the real reason they asked for his help was to see him, but he realized it was quite the opposite when he took a closer look at the allies they had. 

  
Niki, who barely knew how to fight. Quackity, who had only just defected from Schlatt and treated close to everything that happened like it was a big joke. Tubbo, the older being the one who had been spying for Schlatt, though his information was little and unhelpful. For the most part, what he did was provide them with his plans, and they were almost glaringly obvious from the way everything had progressed earlier, at least in Techno’s eyes. 

So he kept his head down, gathered materials, and worked on his secret vault. If he was being completely reasonable, there was probably no reason that he needed to hide the vault from both Wilbur and Tommy, but it could be chalked down to something he avoided thinking about at all costs. He stopped wanting to impress the two older brothers years ago, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do it now. He refused to listen to his consciousness. All he was doing was helping by doing what he did best. 

And in the end, it was still fruitless. Tubbo was President, Wilbur was dead, Phil was there to bear the weight of his mistakes, and he was alone again. Seen as a monster by everyone he considered allies when he had told them time and time again that he wasn’t going to make a new government to see his hard work over the past months fall apart. He wasn’t going to torture Wilbur with war and terrorism for four years and let him down when the next bout of elections came around. He wouldn’t be the one to break his older brother’s spirit more than it already had. 

It didn’t matter in the end, anyway. Wilbur had killed himself and left behind nothing but the ghostly imprint of his most brainless-self. The thought had Techno choking with muffled laughter that dissolved into tears he had to press down for the sake of getting somewhere safe from the wrath of L’manberg and their citizens while he built up his resources once more. 

He was unsuccessful, for once in his life. Techno was dragged to the forefront of the newly rebuilt country and exiled by Tubbo and Dream in an attempt to keep him from causing more problems, using Carl as leverage to do what they’d say. Techno had no chance to explain that he was trying to leave anyway, and instead got dragged off to a far away-island by Dream himself, who refused to listen to his insistent protests on the subject. It was unfair, really, especially considering that Techno was pretty much barred from seeing Phil altogether. 

It was what led him to where he was now. 

“I’m gonna need you to hand over your things, Techno,” Dream said, voice hard and threatening in a way that was meant to intimidate him, though he didn’t succeed. Techno shook his head, crossing his arms and turning a blind eye to the man’s emotion. He wasn’t scared of someone like Dream, he had beaten him before and he wasn’t going to cower in fear. 

“No,” Techno said, voice firm in his tone as he glared down the man, gaining a bit of an exasperated laugh from him. 

“No?” Dream asked. Techno could hear something of a smile in his voice as he spoke and rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time to deal with this. 

“No, clean your damn ears,” Techno grumbled, turning away from him to settle down and begin building another base for himself. He was probably going to build it underground again, similar to his old one when he hadn’t figured out that his brothers were using him. Maybe he’d make a vault again, but one all for himself this time. Techno didn’t feel like sharing his things anymore, as stupid as it sounded and as petulant as it made him out to be. 

Dream’s voice was lilting behind his back as Techno moved to chop down the tree closest to him, netherite axe in hand. “Have you set your spawn, Techno?” 

The teen snorted a little, a chuckle escaping him as he blinked and moved on, answering with a bit of surprise in his voice. “Did you forget already? It was the first thing you had me do when you get here, besides-” 

Techno jolted forward as a small gasp escaped him, glancing down to see the shine of a netherite blade stick out of him, flames licking at the edges as it was slid out, the teen collapsing to his knees without the support. The laughter died in his throat and he choked out a noise of confusion and utter panic before being forced into blackness, the hand that clawed at his chest falling away as he went limp, stained with blood and blackening as it rapidly dried on his skin. 

He jolted up a moment later in his bed, gasping and feeling all the after-effects of what had just happened. It barely even registered in his mind as real, his body telling him that he was fine while his mind and the voices screamed at him that he had been stabbed, there was a wound, there was blood and hurt and pain and nothing but fire spreading up his clothes. 

  
The teen couldn’t stop his sob ripping out of his chest, crying out at the pain that wracked his body when there was nothing that was there to cause it. His hands continuously clawed at his chest, ripping through his layers to pull open his dress shirt and press his hands against his sternum, only for them to come back dry. Techno could barely even tell between bleary eyes and shaking hands that wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to tell himself that nothing had happened. 

“I’ll come back around in a couple of days,” Techno heard Dream say from far off, barely registering the voice in his head as he gasped for air, tears escaping his eyes unconsciously with rain pattering down on his head and dampening his clothes. Was this what it felt like to die? Did Tubbo feel the same way when Techno had blown apart his chest with fireworks? Surely it must have been worse, Techno thought, his brain not clicking into what had happened. Was that what it was like to be at the end of his sword in tournaments, getting torn apart without mercy and not even given the chance to respawn in peace, simply thrown back into things to kill more in Bedwars. 

Techno wasn’t particularly sheltered, but  _ God,  _ he didn’t expect this when Tommy had said it hurt to lose a life on Dream’s lands. Maybe it was a cruel thing of Dream’s hubris that he decided to turn up the pain of what everyone felt when they died on his lands, but he knew that would be a lie. The servers were in easy mode, it would be considered difficult to die in this context. 

Dream was serious. Dream was  _ serious.  _

There was something scary added to the situation when it came to the aggressiveness he had been met with. As far as he knew, that was only the first time Dream would come along and steal one of his lives. He shook his head, catching his breath as he wiped at his eyes. 

Techno wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to cry over something stupid like this, he was going to stand up and get shit  _ done.  _

He moved to get to his feet, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and shifting in place. Techno’s head spun, even from preparing to stand up. His mouth was dry and he felt saliva fill up the bottom half part of his tongue, cold and sour as he blinked, feeling his stomach turn. His eyes went wide, stumbling out of bed and moving forward and away from where he was sat to throw up into the grass, retching with fervour into the long grass. 

Techno panted for breath, wiping the back of his mouth as he kept his eyes squinted and bleary with tears that had come about after he had thrown up the first time. He moved away from his patch of vomit, shaking slightly as he made an effort to avoid the reeking spot of grass and curled up in a ball. 

This would be worse than he thought, Techno inferred, lying in the grass with shaking limbs. He didn’t know how true his thoughts would ring. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / vomiting

The next visit was two days after Techno had first been put on the island itself, Dream coming around to check up on the teen. 

The two days that Techno had been left alone had primarily been spent getting over the pain of his death. Without anyone by his side, it was considerably harder for him to get up and on his feet as fast as he could. It was surprising, considering he had seen how fast Tubbo had gotten up after being blown to bits by his fireworks, but he supposed it had something to do with potions he didn’t have access to. 

When the brunt of his sickness had finally passed enough for him to stand without immediately getting a wave of vertigo, Techno had begrudgingly dragged himself to go out and gather tools and materials as fast as he could to get back to his previous wealth. Dream really had taken _all_ of his things, not even leaving him with an Enderchest with his things. If he wanted to go to the Nether to get blaze rods to make himself another, he would have to make himself armour, which means he needed tools, which means he needed to work and it was hard to even move at the time. 

After about an hour of struggling, he had managed to gather himself a full set of iron tools, smelted and polished to something a bit short of his usual brand of perfection. His hands had been shaking a bit too much for him to make them up to his standards, so he had to accept what he had made for himself or end up with nothing. 

Techno wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, the sleeves of his dress-shirt rolled-up and an axe in the other. He had been chopping down trees for wood in an attempt to make himself a home and somewhere to store his things. He had a basic base for a nice home at the moment, though it was a shabby job in comparison to things that Phil had usually made when he had been constructing homes for villages in the Antarctic Empire. 

Despite how bad the government had been for Phil’s health overall, the man was always happiest when he was making his people homes and places to live. Techno supposed that was the part of the Empire that he really wanted in the first place, rather than politics and such that had only stressed him out. He vaguely remembered that it was where he had first met Wilbur and Tommy, though it was at different times. They had found Wilbur first when he was around eight years old and only had been with Phil for about two years. 

Wilbur had been helping in the construction of one of the houses on the outskirts of a rather high-class home, being one of the few who had bothered to volunteer in the construction of the home at all. After a bit of enquiry, they had found out that the sixteen-year-old, at the time, had been squatting in the frame of the home and he had figured that he should help make it before going off on his own again. 

Phil and Techno became fond of him rather quickly, rather than being put off. Techno supposed that at the time, it was because of how many places Wilbur had travelled, as he detailed in a notebook. He had carried it around with him everywhere he went, leatherbound with yellowing pages covered in inked-out entries about places all around the lands he had been. Techno was pretty sure that he had stepped foot in every land on their continent at least once, and it was awe-inspiring, to say the least. 

It was something depressing, to have Tommy come along and steal that attention, even though he knew it wasn’t on purpose. The age gap was just smaller between them, a mere three years rather than eight, and they had naturally grown closer due to their shared experience of homelessness over the years. Techno couldn’t relate very well through his experiences in the Nether, though he was homeless there as well. 

Ghostbur was by far the most depressing person he had ever met, even though his demeanour had been completely different from how he made Techno feel. It felt like an insult to him, to see his older brother pushed down to nothing but a happy-go-lucky bumbling idiot of a ghost that couldn’t express anything besides happy feelings. No sarcasm, no wit, no banter or bitterness or anger, just joy and joy and _more fucking joy._

Dream cleared his throat behind Techno as his thoughts were jolted away from him, looking back with a quick spin and slightly widened eyes. He wasn’t going to show fear in front of the man now, glaring down at him instead before raising his chin. 

“What do you want?” He asked, his iron axe raised to point at him, though it didn’t hold the same threat his netherite one had. _The one that had been blown up,_ Techno thought bitterly. 

“Just checking in, Blade,” Dream said, voice pleasant with his hands tucked into his pockets, crossbow strapped to his back and sword at his hip, axe on the other side and another bag with a bit of a pickaxe sticking out. If Techno had, hypothetically, been able to beat him, would have a pretty good set of tools for himself, but the glowing netherite armour had ended up putting him off. 

“Don’t need to check in on me,” Techno said, voice a familiar monotone. “The whole point of banishment is to be alone, isn’t it?” Dream laughed a bit, though Techno didn’t think anything he said was very funny. 

“Well, you are going to be far, far away, but you have to be where I can check up on you, right? Otherwise, how will I be able to survey my lands properly? Survey my people?” Dream asked, his arms spread to gesture to the area around them, curling a hand into a fist. Techno looked at him with narrowed eyes, unimpressed. 

‘You speak as though you’re a ruler,” Techno said, throwing over ropes on his back and lassoing them around the tree he had chopped down, making sure it was secure as Dream stood, watching him. 

“Well, I kind of am, aren’t I?” Dream said from behind him, Techno’s shoulders automatically tensing, though his voice still sounded far. “These are my lands, legally.” 

Techno scoffed a bit, standing up with the ropes held tight in his now-gloved hands, pulling the tree behind him to the area where he was making his home. Dream followed after him, grabbing a bit of rope from the tangle that had been twisted through the branches, relieving some of the weight of his shoulders. 

“More to being a leader than that,” Techno grunted, not paying mind to Dream’s hum in the background. “‘S about taking care of your people, wanting the best for them. Going ‘round the community and seeing what they need to adapt and make sure that they’re alright. But then politics stop you, and there’re people high up who tell you that you can’t help this poor little town that needs food because they need to give more money to the high-class city who don’t like how their roads or buildings look like. While all these people are living in, in slums where they don’t have clean water or insulation.” 

Techno stopped as he dragged the tree over to the base of his home, Dream stopping as well as he stood still, dropping the rope and crossing his arms loosely. “Huh,” Dream said, voice comprehensive. Techno hummed, moving to sit down by the top of the tree to pull out the axe that was tethered to his side to chop at the branches that had been connected to the main trunk. The edge of the axe was dulled, though he worked with it anyway. 

“You know a lot about this, don’t you?” Dream asked, voice slightly teasing. Techno hummed, though he didn’t look up from his task. It became automatic as he spoke, zoning out as he looked at the wood. 

“Grew up with it, I guess. Most everyone’s heard of the Antarctic Empire,” Techno said matter-of-factly. He threw another branch into the pile that was in front of him, landing at Dream’s feet as the man hung around, moving to sit in front of him, cross-legged as well. 

“Surprised you’d hate the government after hearing of your background, but after hearing that tirade, I can kind of understand it.” The tips of Techno’s ears reddened slightly, glad that he had hair covered his ears from Dream’s sight. 

“Well, yeah,” Techno said, voice low as he continued to chop at the tree in silence. He finally finished after a couple of minutes of silence, the main trunk stripped bare as Dream stopped peeling the leaves off of the branches he had gathered. He sighed, getting up as Techno looked up, a bit of confusion in his eyes. 

“Well, this has been fun, but I’m going to need your stuff, Blade.” The boy’s eyes widened, sitting up where he was and moving to his feet. 

“You already did this, what do you mean you need my stuff?” Techno demanded, though his hands would have been shaking slightly if he hadn’t wrapped them around his axe in an iron grip. Dream laughed a bit, shaking his head with his hands up in a universal peace sign.

“Well, not all of your stuff, but just the armour,” Dream clarified, moving to kick at the dirt and summoning himself a shovel. Techno wet his lips nervously, watching him dig out a hole similar to the one that Dream had the first time he had come around. A pang of phantom pain filled his chest as he watched the familiar motion. The same vein of panic filled his lungs, but he pushed it down in favour of standing strong. He wasn’t going to be killed again, he _wasn’t._

Armour wasn’t that hard to get, anyway. Dream looked up at him as he moved away from the hole, looking at Techno expectedly. He glared at him, but took his boots off, as well as the leg pieces and looked away from Dream. The man sighed, footsteps sounding as Techno stared stubbornly at the ground. 

With a jolt, Techno felt a hand on his face, cupping his chin with an iron grip and making him face Dream’s mask far closer than he ever had been to the man. Techno yelped a bit, pushing away from him but failing as his grip tightened, pained tears springing into his eyes against his will as he felt his chest pang again. 

“Get the rest of your armour, _Technoblade._ I’m not joking around.” Dream let go of him, pushing him away and towards his chests as Techno stumbled back, wiping at his eyes with a nasty glare pointed to Dream. The uneasy peace of the past hour had been diminished and Techno was glad they had trodden back into familiar territory. 

Techno moved to his chests, opening them to root through the chest with iron and other materials, pulling out the chest plate and the helmet, eyes narrowed to hold himself back from more tears and walking over to his pitiful pit of dented armour. He looked up at Dream, who tilted his head, and threw the pieces in. Dream nodded in approval and threw in a couple sticks of TNT he had pulled out of the bag on his back. 

The teen stumbled back and away from the pit as he shot a flaming bow into the pit, listening to the explosion and feeling the ground shake beneath his feet as another round of vertigo hit him at that moment, Techno stumbling back and falling on his tailbone, eyes squeezed shut as dirt and stone flew out from the pit. 

Techno’s mind was spinning, and he felt as though he was going to throw up again, stomach tossing as he struggled to push back the feeling of wanting to throw up. With a quick turn of his head, his nausea came back tenfold and he turned over to retch soundlessly over a patch of dirt, coughing as well. Tears built up in his eyes again as he struggled to catch his breath and breathing in and out rapidly. 

A hand slipped between his shoulders, rubbing his back gently as his hair fanned over his face, providing a curtain from the rest of the world as he spat out the remaining bit of saliva that had been dripping from his teeth. He breathed in and out slowly, eyes clenched shut as he shook his head, moving to sit up as a hand scratched at his hair absently.

“Get,” Techno breathed in, coughing slightly, voice gravelly. “Away from me. Or I’ll take off your hand.” 

The hand in his hair paused before disappearing, along with the presence of someone nearby. Techno moved to turn over, lying back in the grass as he wiped his mouth once more and stared up at the sky, waiting for it to stop spinning. 

When he finally came back to enough sense to sit up and look around, Dream was gone. The only remaining evidence of his presence had been the explosion that had been his armour. Techno crawled over to the wreckage, gazing down into the hole with blurry eyes before he wiped at them once more. 

The hole was smouldering with little bits of fire that hadn’t been put out by debris. He could spot bits of iron where his armour had been, but they were small and unusable shards that he couldn’t meld if he tried. They had been mixed with stone and dirt that had been mixed into it and dried in the same spot with what looked like unshakable fervour. 

It hurt a little, to see the wreckage of his work. The first time, he hadn’t been able to properly process what had been happening in the aftermath of his first death, but this time around, it was different. It didn’t hurt the way that his death had, nothing would come close to that, but to see his work destroyed as though it was nothing was something he didn’t realize could make him feel as shit as he did. 

He couldn’t be weak now, not in the state he was in. He needed to get better, he wouldn’t be beaten out by a stupid hunter who liked to terrorize cities. He _wouldn’t._

Techno sighed, blinking hard before getting to his feet, rubbing his eyes of tears and stumbling back to his chests. Back to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am having so much fun writing this i think ill be done it fast because i just love the concept and its easy for me to write since my minimum at the moment is 2k words and not 5k, so its a lot less stressful :) hope you guys enjoyed, tell me what you think so far!! i like to hear what you guys think and this scene specifically id like to hear about, if im being honest :)) <3


	3. Chapter 3

What Techno was both expecting and not expecting from his exile was the fact that he had no visitors at all. 

Of course, it would be stupid to assume that he would be getting visited by L’manberg and its citizens. He wasn’t an idiot like Tommy enjoyed poking at him about. Tubbo and his posse were the last people he was expecting to come to visit him, but he did wonder about the small population of people who would miss him on his lonely beachside estate. 

Phil hadn’t come around once in the past week, despite how long it had been since he had been exiled. He wasn’t there when Techno had first been taken away, but surely he must have heard the news later on when he had come back from his turtle-finding mission. One that _Techno_ was supposed to go on with him, but he guessed that it was most likely to save time that he hadn’t been allowed to go with, along with him being in hiding and getting ready to move. 

  
Techno was convinced, at the moment, that if he had been just an hour faster in packing, he wouldn’t have been caught nor would he have been on this island in the first place. It just seemed unjust to him, to be thrown out of a country he was already planning to leave. At sixteen, as well, as much as he hated playing the age card. 

Most of the time his age was brought up, it was to put down his talents or claim that he was using potions where he shouldn’t be or that he had been experimented on, most of them heard in Hypixel tournaments, but he let them roll off his shoulders and beat them with a bloodthirsty grin. It was a bit harder to brush the comments off during the Crimson Trials when he had been fighting in survival games with people who were much, much more well-known than him. It was terrifying, as a fourteen-year-old too tall and with a voice too deep for his age to be against full-grown adults, but he enjoyed the tournaments anyway. 

He even played with Phil and Wilbur once, on separate occasions. Techno was pretty sure that he had attended the Crimson trials with Schlatt as well before the man had gone senile in L’manberg. He was enjoyable to be around then, a good beacon of light and humour for him to keep his head up while they were sneaking around abandoned cities and forests for kills to win. The teen had won with him as well, and they kept in contact for a couple of months before the older had decided that he had bigger things to focus on, and dropped contact. 

It was a bit of a trend now if Techno was being honest with himself. Very few people were interested in him for _him,_ not even most of his family. Phil was probably the only person he could say with certainty had kept him around for himself, because he had been the one to teach him how to fight in the first place, along with Wilbur and his sparring sessions. The older would hold them over his head for all of the time, even if he had won them now. 

Techno sighed in his bed, rubbing at his eyes as he stared up at his wooden ceiling, eyes half-open. The sun was shining through the trapdoors that had made up the windows and fell over his bedsheets in a dappled pattern that had caught the teen’s interest, shifting to sit up and flick his hand under the light, watching the light pass over his thin fingers with thinly-veiled interest. In the back of his head, Techno could hear him scolding himself for getting distracted, but didn’t care much. 

The home he was in was modest, to say the least. A mere five meters wide and seven long, he had his bed pressed up lengthwise to the very back wall, a small window right above it, facing his left when he laid staring up in bed. The floors were made of oak logs that he had stripped and sanded down over two days to flatten out, mostly using the edge of his axe and a pair of shears that he used to get rid of imperfections. 

The logs that had made up the support beams were in their original form, thick trunks that were unmovable after Techno had dug a couple of feet into the ground and packed molten stone around so they wouldn’t move. Maybe if there was an earthquake, they would be shaken, but the lands he was on didn’t seem to be on a fault line, so there was little worry in his mind for the time being. There was only one floor, anyway, so nothing too bad would happen. 

His roof was made of wood on the inside, reinforced with a stone that he had painstakingly carved into careful pieces when he had been bedridden with nausea. Luckily enough, Techno had found enough ingredients for soup the day prior, so he drank it cold and made it through his sick wave easily enough, especially without Dream’s intervention. 

  
The man hadn’t been around for a while now, despite how he had promised he would come every day. It had been at least three days without him, and Techno had gotten a new set of armour he felt safe in. It stayed on his person almost every waking moment, save for when he went to bed, where it would lay on an armour stand by the door. It was something he was proud to have and wasn’t planning on giving up anytime soon. 

_It was a bit stupid_ , Techno thought absently, legs swinging over the side of the bed to get up, shaking out his sore limbs and pink hair. _It was stupid how easily he had given up his armour. Techno wasn’t a scaredy-cat, he hadn’t become a coward in a couple of days, nor would he be forced into that mindset._

Techno put on the armour he had at the moment, forgoing his usual cape for efficiency’s sake. His recent death had his limbs feeling a bit heavier than usual, and he wanted to save his energy, even if it was just the energy he needed to drag his cape around. It felt wrong to leave the royal red fabric in his home, where no one would see it, especially since Tommy had made it for him, but he hadn’t a choice in the matter. It was for his well-being. 

His beach wasn’t all that cold, anyway, Techno found himself thinking, looking for an upside. He was sure if he had both his armour and his cape on, it wouldn’t do much good. 

The teen grunted a bit as he pulled a bag away from the side of his small cabin, filled with coal he had harvested the night prior. Techno dragged the bag over to a chest he had at the back of his house, where things were more organized. He propped open a chest and dumped in the ore, hands turning slowly gray as he scooped up loose bits of it to put in the chest properly. When every last bit had been deposited, he looked into the chest, eyes sweeping over the individual stones before closing it and getting up, bumping into someone behind him. 

“Hello!” Techno whipped around, hands raised in a fighting stance and automatically lashing out at the man behind him, his fist hitting hard stone and cracking slightly in the process, making him cry out and pull his hand to his chest. Techno glared at Dream, who looked back at him with his stupid mask and smiley voice, hand raised in a wave. 

“Nice to see you, Blade.” The man walked past him, pretending he hadn’t even just been punched square in the middle of his face. Techno stalked after him with a hand on the axe on his waist, Dream making his way to the front of his house. 

“What are _you_ doing back here?” Techno growled, fed-up by the man’s behaviour as he crossed his arms in defiance, watching the man turn back to him. Dream tilted his head in a juvenile manner, making Techno’s hatred grow slightly. 

“I came to visit you, of course! I was in L’manberg for a while and no one seemed to be coming or going, so I figured you would be lonely,” Dream said in a smiley voice, one that sent pangs of annoyance and a bit of fear down his body. Techno scoffed, pointing his axe to the ocean with a firm grip. 

“I didn’t miss you. Leave.” Once again, the man ignored his words, looking around the area. Techno’s eyes followed his view almost automatically, watching his vision flick over the mine, house, beach and little field he had cleared out for a future farm. 

“You’re doing well for yourself, Blade, I’m glad! Your exile was a good idea, huh?” Techno narrowed his eyes, swinging his axe over his shoulder before moving it back into his hilt, hands-free to grab it should he need. 

“I’m not opposed to being alone, but I’d rather it be on my terms,” He said slowly, trying not to outright agree with the man standing across him. Dream seemed to have picked up on it, anyway, clapping his hands together happily. 

“It’s nice to hear you aren’t letting it get you down! I know Phil was _probably_ worried, even though he hasn’t tried to visit you yet, but when I spoke to him-” 

“What d’you mean, spoke to Phil?” Techno’s voice cut in, sharp and firm with a tinge of confusion he couldn’t hide in his haste to get his words out. Dream paused in his casual walk, seemingly backpedalling. 

“Well, I wouldn’t want to upset you, just forget-” Techno cut him off again, voice growing angry. 

“I’m not a child, just _tell me!_ ” Dream paused once more, face turning to make eye contact with Techno slowly. The teen couldn’t help the shiver of fear that made its way up to his spine, and he walked back a little as Dream stalked closer to him, not saying a word. 

“Don’t interrupt me, Blade. And give me your armour.” Techno’s face twisted, a wave of familiar anger simmering under his skin. 

“You can’t just do this every time you-” 

“I can, and I will. Give it to me and I’ll tell you what Phil said.” Techno hesitated at the words, his protest dying on his tongue as he considered his choices. On one hand, he could keep his progress and be good without the knowledge of what Phil had been saying to Dream that he seemed hesitant to share, but he could also just _know what Phil had been saying._

Armour was replaceable, anyway. 

Techno moved back from Dream, taking off his armour quickly and depositing it between the two, looking at the man with a challenge in his eyes. The masked man didn’t acknowledge it, simply scooping up the pile of metal in his arms and going over to the same hole the last bit of armour had been blown up in, throwing it in there and repeating the process. Techno watched it with pursed lips, turning back to Dream as he walked away from the hole. 

“What did Phil say?” He demanded, following him and grabbing at his sleeve. Dream, to his surprise, didn’t lash out at the action. It threw Techno off for a moment, but he didn’t complain. 

“Oh, nothing really, I guess. I told him about how you’d been banished and he said he was surprised, but didn’t bring it up later. Didn’t ask where you were, either, but I think that was because Tommy already knew.” Techno frowned, grip loosening on the fabric as he looked up at the man. 

“But Tommy doesn’t know I’m here.” Dream looked down at him, a sympathetic tone mixing into his voice. 

“Does he not? I thought Tubbo would’ve told him.” Techno scoffed, shaking his head as he kicked at the ground, running a hand through his messy hair, pulling away from Dream completely and turning his back to him, exposing his vulnerability by accident.

“Tubbo doesn’t care about me, he’s just glad I’m gone. Phil’ll realize Tommy doesn’t know, what’ll he do after that? He won’t know how to get to me.” Dream put a hand on Techno’s shoulder, only for it to be shaken off by the teen almost immediately after.

“I’m sure someone’ll tell him. Or he’ll figure it out. He’s smart, isn’t he?” Techno frowned, a noise of discontent escaping him. Dream inhaled quietly before calling for him. 

“Well, we could wait?” Techno turned back to him, eyebrows raised. 

“ _We?_ ” He asked, incredulous. Dream laughed aloud, sunny despite the juxtaposition to the words he spoke previously. 

“C’mon, Blade, I’m not _that_ bad. I’ll wait here with you for Phil! What if he comes while we’re mining and you can’t hear him? I’ll be able to tell when he’s here. Admin, remember?” Techno’s skepticism grew, but he could agree that the man had a point. Despite his ears, the teen couldn’t hear through the ground in the mines, only from a bit away. If Dream stayed, he would have that advantage, but the man could just as easily be playing him and he was falling right into his trap. 

“What do you get out of this? A favour?” Techno demanded, hands twisting around the handle of his axe as he held it in front of him, feet positioned so he could swing at any moment. Dream raised his hands, shaking his head. 

“Nothing, Blade. I just want to help you! It sucks you’re here by yourself, already, let alone people not wanting to visit you.” A pause. “Has Ghostbur even been here yet?” 

  
Techno’s jaw clenched, and Dream nodded. 

“Just what I mean. We could go mining if you want? Diamonds would be nice, to replace some of your tools.” Despite how much he wanted to say, Techno nodded slowly, eyes half-lidded and tired. 

“I don’t think you’ll leave me alone either way,” He grumbled, making his way past Dream after sheathing his axe and walking over to his small mine, leading downwards. The man followed him after a cheery noise of confirmation. 

Rocks shook slightly as Techno made his way down, followed by Dream, who seemed to be swinging away at the walls of his small walkway to make it wider. Techno couldn’t help but be envious of the netherite pickaxe he had, watching it melt through the stone in a split second, going through more than three times the blocks he had in his first attempt. 

  
Eventually, the two of them reached a mine lower down, where diamonds tended to be. Dream still hadn’t spoken much, and Techno had no desire to, so he didn’t start any conversation. The majority of his work was done in silence as his thoughts took up the rest of it, not sparing much mind to the voices that screamed at him. They weren’t around now, for some reason. He wondered if it had something to do with the Admin by him, but he didn’t dare question him about him. Techno didn’t need another weapon against him. 

Dream hummed cheery tunes to himself as Techno dug himself out a new tunnel, arms straining with effort as he chipped away at a stone wall slowly, making his way about seven meters in after about a minute or so. Dream paused in his humming as Techno wiped his forehead again, panting quietly. 

“Do you want to borrow my pick?” His voice sounded like a shout after the silence Techno had been stewing in, almost flinching at the words before making his way out of his partially-made tunnel, looking at him. 

“Why, are you gonna trick me or something?” Techno questioned, untrusting. Dream shrugged, holding out the tool to him, handle-side facing him. 

“You’re taking too long, kid. Just take the help.” Techno frowned, glaring from where he stood as he snarled under his breath. 

“I’m not a _kid,_ idiot. Don’t call me that.” Dream held up his hands, shaking his head. 

“Okay, okay. Not a kid. Now, will you take the pick?” Dream’s voice was sincere, and Techno couldn’t hear much of a hint that he was lying. Techno looked at him for a couple more minutes before moving forward and grabbing it silently, stalking back into his tunnel. He could practically feel Dream’s smugness from where he was, but he didn’t care. He could mine faster now, it was fine. Techno would be powerful as he was a couple of days ago again. 

“I’ll tell you if I can feel Phil here!” Dream called after him, Techno could practically hear the stupid smile in his voice as he forced himself to ignore the man. He breathed in deeply, exhaling slowly before continuing his work. 

Phil would come to see him. He was sure of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry to the poor commenters who’ve only just caught up to the last chapter but i am genuinely having such a good time writing this that i cant stop, please dont be upset lol hope u enjoyed <3333


	4. Chapter 4

Overtime, Dream was slowly becoming a familiar but frustrating thorn in Techno’s side. 

The mining trip they had must’ve solidified something in the man’s mind because it had only been a couple hours after he had left before Techno awoke to the man outside his cabin once more. The teen hadn’t even bothered making armour at the time, not wanting to know if it would’ve gotten blown up directly after Dream had come around the next day. 

He was annoying, a lot of the time. The man would hang around Techno and peer over his shoulder while all he did was try to get his things in order. Every now and then, Techno would check out his food reserves and find a little bit more food missing than he had taken, but he chalked it up to the wildlife. Gathering food took up the majority of his time, as did getting diamond tools. 

After the mining trip they had when Techno had been waiting for Phil, he managed to make himself a diamond pick with the few resources he found. All he had leftover afterwards was an awkward bit of diamond wedged deeply in a rock that he couldn’t peel out if he tried, nor could he break it out without risking damaging it. He decided to put it in his house. It was shiny, and he liked having something around to take up his attention. 

Techno had started his farm the day after the mining trip as well, hoeing the ground in familiar motions as he planted potatoes and carrots, the only root vegetables that he had access to while he was in exile. The crops were at least near water, so he hadn’t had to go as far as he did in Pogtopia to water his farm and make sure his food was edible. It would just be a couple weeks, maybe a few months before he would be able to eat them regularly. The first wave of crops was always the most awkward to ration when figuring out how much he could gain and retain in the process. 

It was something he had come to master, though. His potatoes did end up feeding Pogtopia, and a long time ago, they had fed the Antarctic Empire as well. Those days were long gone now, but he looked back on them every now and then with a bit of pride over the fact he had managed to beat out another adult over something they thought they were good at. He was pretty sure it was his first significant accomplishment. 

Dream praised his farm when he had seen it, which had made Techno grunt and look away, ignoring the man again, but it was hard to ignore him completely when he would ramble about what had been going on in L’manberg. The man spoke of Tubbo and Tommy’s slow rebuilding of the country, as well as how happy they seemed. Techno couldn’t help the pang of hurt that filled his chest at the words, though he knew that there wasn’t much justification behind it. 

It was  _ him  _ who had betrayed L’manberg, even though they had been the ones to betray his trust first. Tommy was well within his rights to not want to see him again, as was Tubbo, but he expected at least a little  _ care  _ from him. Maybe it had been selfish of him, but he would rather Tommy acknowledge his existence than pretend that he hadn’t been around at all. It was something he and Wilbur had been used to doing, even before they made L’manberg, but it stung more this time around. 

Phil hadn’t visited, either. Techno had been suspicious about it when Dream hadn’t brought up that the man was coming to visit, but he apparently had been prepared for that. The man had given him a letter that was apparently from Phil, signed off with his name and all. The letter detailed how he was unable to visit at the time, but that he would come soon and that he needn’t worry. It took Techno an hour of examination before he had concluded that the letter was real at all, and found himself begrudgingly deciding to stay in the area rather than moving out when Dream hadn’t come around as he had planned. 

It had been about a week and a half since his exile, but everything had been progressing so slowly that Techno wasn’t sure what to do with himself besides strip-mine for diamonds and get himself to the Nether as fast as possible. There was a lot to keep himself busy that he could do, but his limbs were heavy in a way they hadn’t been before and his mind had been taken up with too many thoughts for him to organize into a working place. 

Some days he would wake up and stare up at the ceiling, a heaviness to his bones that would leave him staring into nothing while he had wanted to do nothing but get work done. It was as though there was something physically stopping him from getting up and just putting his mind into what he wanted to do, despite Techno knowing he was more than capable, as well as it being something he wanted to do. Maybe it was the feeling of thinking the world would end should he stand up, but it was a struggle to get up some days, resorting to mindlessly stimulating himself by brushing his hands through his pink hair to try and gather energy to get up. 

It was where he was now, laid sideways in bed with one hand hanging over the edge, eyes following his fingers as he twitched them absently, ignoring the buzzing hivemind in the back of his head and zoning out, eyes bleary despite how he had awoken almost half an hour earlier. It was starting to become a problem, Techno thought, how his energy would come and go in random waves of productiveness. 

A knocking came at his door, familiar in its pattern, but Techno couldn’t harness the energy to make himself get up and open it for him. The door was unlocked, anyway. Dream could come in if he really wanted to, and if he didn’t want to come in, then at least he would be left alone for another day. Techno sighed quietly, wetting his lips as the door opened and footsteps padded in quietly, no voice coming from the usually loud man as he walked into the dimmed room. 

The windows had been closed and torches were unlit, leaving it darker than usual. Techno even used his cape to cover one of the bigger windows, though it wasn’t that big in comparison to the rest of the small cabin. 

Techno closed his eyes as the footsteps stopped in front of him, waiting for the scolding or teasing that he would inevitably get. Dream couldn’t force him to get up, anyway. It didn’t matter what the man said, not when he had heard it from the countless voices that shouted he was lazy and nothing more. They quieted down when the man came around, however. It was a strange, recurring pattern. 

“Is there a reason you’re just in bed?” Dream asked from above him, though his voice was less confrontational than Techno expected. The teen hummed, looking away from him and burying his face in his pillow, the blanket pulled up to try and convey that he didn’t want to be seen. 

“Fuck off.” He heard the man sigh and shift slightly before Dream spoke again, voice closer this time rather than towering over him before. 

“I get this way, too, sometimes. It’s fine if you just want to stay in bed.” Techno pulled back his blankets slightly, looking at the man through half-open eyes to face the same mask again. It had managed to convey sympathy somehow, and Techno found himself skeptical. 

“How would  _ you  _ know how I’m feeling?” Techno croaked, voice still dry from just awakening. Dream tilted his head slightly, almost curiously. 

“It’s the feeling that your limbs are all heavy, right? And how you want to get something done that’s important to you but you physically can’t move and it feels like something is sitting on your chest that’s stopping you from getting done when really, the only thing stopping you is yourself. And you hear people tell you that it’s okay to get up and just get something done but it’s just something you… you can’t  _ do,  _ y’know?” 

Techno blinked, sitting up slightly where he sat, eyes slightly narrowed, though the immediate distrust was falling away a bit. “Yeah. How’d you know what that’s like?” 

Dream chuckled a bit under his mask, moving from crouching to sitting cross-legged in front of his bed. “I’m the same way, I think. There’s a word for it, it’s like… ADHD, I think. One of my old friends told me about it.” Dream paused. “Before they left me.” 

Techno shifted slightly, feeling odd at the sight of a strangely vulnerable Dream in front of him. The words the man had said earlier rang true in his head, however, and Techno almost found himself relieved to know that he hadn’t been the only one who had something that seemed so stupid of a problem that it wasn’t worth bringing up at all. 

“We have that in common,” Techno found himself saying, almost unbidden. Dream looked up to him, a curious hum in his throat. The teen shifted, moving to sit up cross-legged as well, blanket wrapped around his shoulders protectively. 

“With friends. And betraying,” Techno clarified, Dream ‘ahhing’ quietly in understanding. The two fell silent for a moment before Dream spoke up once more. 

“It was George. And Sapnap, the two of them,” He started. “I had made George king, I don’t know if you were there for it.” At a shake of his head, Dream continued. “I didn’t think so. George had been king for maybe a couple of days, and he had been getting threats and near assassinations. It was unlike anything I’d seen, and everyone seemed to hate him even though he hadn’t been in the spotlight for long. I realized pretty quickly it was because he was friends with me, and I have, I have a  _ lot  _ of enemies. There was nothing I could do to make sure he was completely safe. So I decided to take him out of power. He was unhappy about the politics, too, so I figured it was the best solution. Y’know what he did?” 

Techno was invested in the story at this point, hands picking at the blanket in his lap. It was oddly familiar and hearing it made something in his stomach twist strangely. “What did he do?” 

“He got mad at me for it after he talked to Sapnap and Quackity.  _ Quackity,  _ of all people, he listened to. They didn’t even know each other for that long, only a couple of months.” Dream shifted where he sat, sitting up a bit and drawing Techno’s attention more. 

“Me, George, and Sapnap had been friends since we were kids, a long, long time ago. We did everything together, we made the community house together. We had each other’s backs and knew what to do whenever we were in trouble. It was like we- we could read each other's  _ minds,  _ we were so in sync. And- and this  _ Quackity  _ guy comes along, and suddenly none of that matters? None of the wars we fought in together, none of the nights we spent searching for Bad, none of it-” Dream cut himself off once more, taking a deep breath before continuing, flexing his hands as he stared at them in his lap aimlessly. 

“George insisted that I’d, I’d  _ betrayed  _ him or something. I was just looking out for them, and they said they hated me and I didn’t deserve them. Good riddance, on my part, but it still stings, you know? Even though you were close to them all your life and thought you could trust them, they just fuck you over for someone they just met.” 

Techno found himself swallowing a lump in his throat as Dream spoke, the man’s voice growing softer at the end and letting a bit of emotion fall through. The teen could feel it in his voice that he was being genuine in his story, moving to bring the blanket up to his face slightly. The feeling growing in the pit of his stomach was similar to the one he had when he thought of his family and how they used to be; it was painful to think about.

“...Yeah, I know what you mean. It- Tommy and Wilbur. He had been, what, half my life? Been there. And he just-” Techno cut himself off again, growing frustrated as emotion clogged up his attempts to speak freely. Dream nodded along anyway, butting in anyway. 

“The government thing, right? You said you didn’t want one and they made it anyway, so you unleashed the withers and worked with me to take down L’manberg.” Techno blinked at the reminder, stuttering to a stop before nodding slowly, hands twisting into the blanket he held. 

“I did work with you, yeah. I forgot about that.” Dream laughed a bit, though it wasn’t cruel or mocking as his usual one. It was a couple of breathy chuckles that Techno found himself oddly comforted by. 

“Me and you are a lot more similar than we thought, huh?” He asked, Techno knowing well enough that the question was rhetorical in nature. He nodded anyway, mind drifting once more. Dream seemed to have noticed, nudging the bed with his knee from where he sat. 

“Feel free to go back to bed, I won’t bother you. Just try and get up tomorrow, it’ll be easier to get things done if you don’t lay down for two days rather than one.” A nod followed, and Dream shifted to get up, wiping his hands off on his pants and getting ready to leave. 

For an unbidden moment, Techno felt the urge to call out after him and ask the man to stay before shaking himself into sense. He wasn’t going to ask Dream to stay, the man was doing nothing but slowing his progress and making problems on purpose. He was a menace and all Dream was doing was antagonizing him out of boredom. 

Despite all this, the story of the three friends hadn’t left his head as he laid awake in the dark, eyes open and sleepless. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> less action packed chapter, but its definitely still important to the grand scheme of things :) hope you guys are enjoying the frequent updates, and thanks for reading! tell me what you think, i feel like the pacing might be off but i just want to make sure by asking some of you <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / violence

The thing that Techno never realized he would miss when he was in exile was the people, of everything there was to choose from. 

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he didn’t like to hang around people often. He had spent the majority of his childhood in his room while his siblings had goofed off loudly in the gardens and made a ruckus in the halls. There were very vivid memories of him sitting in his room, studying when he wasn’t training and being bothered by Tommy and Wilbur’s loud voices down the hall and filling his thoughts until it was hard to focus. 

There was one specific instance he remembered, when he had been learning the story of Eurydice and Orpheus, leaned over a book with yellowing pages and inking his own notes onto a separate page of his own in a journal. It was an interesting read at the time and had managed to make him want to look into it more. Techno had left his room on the rare occasion late in the night, a candle wick in hand as he sneaked around the large castle they were in to get to the in-home library. 

Techno had crept past Tommy’s room, which was strangely silent, and then walked past Wilbur’s. He was ready to go on as normal, but he heard a quiet laugh from behind the door and paused in his steps. Techno had turned back, pressing a pointed ear to the door and listening through the wood to hear the two speaking inaudibly, a strange feeling filling the pit of his stomach. 

He couldn’t hear much from the other two, but he did faintly remember that he had heard them joking between each other. The feeling was jealousy, Techno had realized faintly, and he had left quickly afterwards. The teen, at the time, had felt a sense of betrayal at the knowledge that his brothers had come together in the middle of the night just to be with each other and not invite him. 

A few years later and he had been cringing in embarrassment every time he thought back on it, even if the other two never knew he was there. Tommy was always one to make fun of him, despite how mature Techno was in comparison to him, so it was always a careful job to make sure he wouldn’t be acting more immature than him. Both for his and Phil’s sake. If Tommy had known of his feelings back then, the man would certainly be the one to poke at them and push at him until there was a repeat of the _Wilbur_ incident. 

Techno didn’t like thinking about the Wilbur incident very much. 

Sometimes, there was a feeling of bitterness that had risen up in Techno when he thought back to his childhood compared to some of the other children like him. It wouldn’t be fair to say that Tommy and Wilbur had it easier than he did since they had certainly taken the brunt of the consequences concerning the war, but he was jealous of some of the other children on their lands who could still act their age. 

Techno had been mature all his life, he had been told by many adults, even Phil himself at one point. The man had meant it kindly, of course, but it had felt unfair altogether. Techno was always the one who had to be the best between his siblings, had to know when to stop, had to know not to make fun of Tommy about being homeless when Tommy had made fun of him for being a hellspawn. It wasn’t _fair,_ not in the slightest, but all the incidents were so minor and spread apart that he knew he would sound like an idiot if he tried to bring it up at some point. 

In isolation with Dream, however, he felt a lot freer in comparison to the strict laws of L’manberg. The masked man had even started sparring with him about a week ago, pointing out something minuscule in the way he had fought off a zombie on one of their late-night mining trips and inspiring a whole new idea. Techno knew of Dream’s fighting style a while before he had come onto the server altogether, but it was different to be coached in it rather than fight against it. 

Apparently, there were a lot of things he didn’t know about axe and shield combat that Dream had long since mastered in his years of fighting. The man never explicitly said he had come from a certain part of the world, but Techno did know he hadn’t come from the Hypixel arenas, mostly because of his lack of skill when it came to using fishing rods and swords a majority of the time. It was a fair trade, even if he didn’t like the man that much. 

After the story that Dream had told Techno on one of his worst days in exile, however, there was something that had clicked in Techno’s brain that was hard to forget, even if he tried.

As the days went along, it had slowly become harder and harder to come up with reasons to hate Dream in the first place. There was the first L’manberg war, of course, but Techno hadn’t been there for that. He had no way of knowing how everything happened, nor did he know what had been going on in the first place. As far as he knew, there was a government being formed that Dream opposed, so he tried to put a stop to it. It was eerily similar to his goals in the second war. And the second war was one that Dream and he had fought together, the two aiding each other. The man even helped by providing him with tools and golden apples at one point, why would he hate him?

There was the deal with the armour, which kept the animosity up between them for the most part, but even Techno was growing weak to that. It was hard to act like he despised Dream and his company when Dream was one of the only people who hadn’t looked at him funny when Techno had expressed interest outside of combat and fighting. Even Tommy seemed to be surprised by the potato thing, though Dream took it in stride when he first heard of the potato wars. 

It was a fresh experience, and Techno was still figuring out how to feel about it a month into his exile and two weeks since daily visits from Dream. 

Techno had spotted the man coming from the Nether portal farther away into the grassy field, squinting into the field before stripping himself of his armour as the man came along, not wanting to waste time before getting ready to train. The teen had been waiting impatiently for his time to finally get into the part of his day he looked forward to most. 

When Dream had come up to him, there was a delight in his voice when he spoke. “I didn’t have to ask you this time, Techno! I’m so proud.” Techno ignored the crooning, though there was a foreign part of him that wanted to fold to the praise and preen under it. 

“Yeah, okay. Can we train now?” Techno asked, bouncing on his heels. His tone must’ve sounded more demanding than he intended since Dream had turned back to him with something of a disappointed-parent stance. 

“What’d I tell you about being pushy, Blade?” He moved back slightly, shuffling across the grass as he folded his arms over his chest, frowning slightly. 

“My bad. I can wait for you to settle in?” He offered hesitantly, not wanting to scare the man off as he had before. 

It was earlier in Dream’s two weeks of visits. Techno hadn’t been used to him being around so much and had utilized the chance to train almost every hour he had spent with him. At one point, however, Dream had decided enough was enough and that they’d do something else rather than push each other to their limits again. 

Techno had, of course, been unhappy with the answer. He had demanded that Dream train with him anyway, and the man had been clearly set-off by the answer. Dream had turned and left, going back to the Nether portal he came from, leaving Techno behind in the dust calling for him to come back so he could get better. The man hadn’t shown up for three days after that, and Techno had quickly grown bored, reverting back into the stage he was in when he could barely drag himself out of bed with no set schedule like he was used to. 

He had learned from that experience rather quickly that denying Dream’s words wouldn’t end very well for him, or at least his mental state. 

( _Wasn’t it Phil who said that humans were social creatures? That they needed to communicate and grow close to people or they would slowly go insane or become depressed since they weren’t born to be ignored and pushed to the side? He was only following what Phil had said. The man would be proud of him._ )

Dream had finished up with Techno’s armour, kicking dirt into the hole it left aimlessly before wandering back to where Techno stood waiting with his shield and axe, held loosely by his side. Dream shook his head, putting his own weapons aside. Techno cocked his head in confusion but followed anyway. 

“I’ve taught you a lot of weapons combat over the past two weeks,” Dream said as they made their way over to the usual spot in the sand that they had cleared over a day. “So, it’s only befitting that we work on classic hand-to-hand, right?” 

Techno nodded slowly as he followed, cracking his knuckles nervously in front of him. “Yeah, that makes sense. I know most of it already, ‘cause of a lot of stuff from where I used to-” 

“C’mon, Blade, are you going to listen to someone who’s been trained in this or just go off of stuff you learned fooling around?” Dream interrupted, walking to his end of their little circle as Techno stopped at the edge of his. He frowned a bit but nodded anyway, agreeing. Dream wasn’t wrong in that sense, most of Techno’s skills were self-taught in the PVP aspect. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. Dunno what I was thinking.” Dream chuckled from across him, shaking his head. 

“It’s alright, you just didn’t know.” Techno’s breath caught in his throat slightly as Dream unbuckled the mask from behind, lifting it up to show a bit of his mouth before pulling his familiar hood off and throwing the usual poncho he wore aside. Dream laughed at the look on Techno’s face, waving it off. 

“Don’t look so surprised, Blade. I trust you won’t knock it off of me. Besides, one day I might end up showing you my face entirely.” The jolt of excitement that filled Techno was unavoidable, as well as that excitement showing on his face. 

“Really?” He questioned, rolling up the sleeves of his dirtied dress shirt and shaking out his arms slightly, stretching in the process. 

“‘Course. I trust you. Don’t you trust me?” Techno hesitated before nodding. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I trust you.” Dream’s lips curled up into a friendly smile right under the brim of the mask, making Techno smile back a little as well. The man gestured for him to come forward, Techno complying as he made his way into their little ring. 

An arm swung at him almost immediately and Techno yelped before dodging, hair whipping around his neck at the sudden jerk the movement made. Dream laughed aloud, shouting alongside his moves as he blazed on. 

“Fight back!” Techno took it as a sign that this would go how most of their weapons duels went and went into the fray, swinging at him in the feral-esque way he had learned in Hypixel and their various arenas. A fist, then a swing of the other arm, duck, swipe with your feet, duck again, uppercut, repeat in various orders. 

It quickly became apparent that Dream had outmatched Techno in this aspect, continuously pushing at the teen with barely any stops. Techno did his best to keep up, making Dream stumble back a few times before the man seemed to have stopped taking the fight as something light-hearted. 

Techno guessed that it was him uppercutting the man solidly that had done it in the end, almost hitting the brim of his mask and managing to get his nose, blood dripping down into view and pouring over his mouth. There was just a split second of silence before the noise returned tenfold. 

Techno cried out as Dream nailed him in the sternum solidly, chest aching from the blows he had taken in the process. The hits he hadn’t registered from earlier were starting to sting, as well as the burning in his arms as ten minutes became fifteen, and then twenty. At the twenty-five minute mark, Techno barely had anything to give to the fight anymore. 

Dream hadn’t paused, hadn’t even appeared to break a sweat in the process. Techno stumbled back from the man, hands moving from the offensive to defensive, working to block most of the blows he got and pushing fists away. 

A well-timed swipe of Dream’s legs under Techno’s that he hadn’t expected had left the teen on his back, drawing a sharp gasp out of him as he rolled over on his side, one arm automatically going over his stomach as he groaned in pain. Okay, round over. It was a good fight for his first try against Dream, but surely the man would have at least a _few_ tips to- 

He was met with a boot to his stomach as he attempted to get up, drawing another pained gasp out of him, his free hand getting stomped on by combat boots that made him feel as though a few of his fingers had been broken, or at least sprained. It was followed by a kick to the back, sand being nearly flung into his eyes and dirt making its way into his mouth when he had opened his mouth to cry out. 

He felt helpless, curled up in the sand as he desperately tried to protect his face, the situation not registering in his brain as he shuffled away from the man, pushing at the sand in a fruitless scramble for safety. Techno felt akin to how prey would feel about a predator chasing him, even though all it had been was a training session akin to their ones with weapons. 

Techno crossed his hands in an X over his face, sitting up in a quick motion when Dream had relented and scooting back, panting heavily as he spat out bits of sand and gravel that he had near-swallowed. 

“Stop, stop, _stop,_ I’m done! I- I’m done, okay? Stop,” Techno’s voice grew soft near the end of the sentence, traitorous tears making their way down his face as he pretended they weren’t there despite their clear trail on his dirtied cheeks. 

The teen flinched back as a hand came to move the arms away from his face. The man didn’t stop in his pursuit, however, instead moving to pull at Techno to make him stand on unsteady feet, slightly dizzy and body aching from the half-hour beatdown he had taken. 

“See that?” Came Dream’s hazy voice, Techno nodding almost automatically. “That’s what’s going to happen if you don’t have my help. I know I went a bit overboard now, but I just wanted to make sure you knew what I was saying when I told you the-the Hypixel shit isn’t gonna help, okay?” 

“Okay,” Techno whispered, coughing slightly. Dream nodded, releasing his grip on Techno’s shoulders to wrap an arm around them, patting his shoulder on the other side as the teen’s head lulled lazily on the man’s shoulder. “Can we not do that again, today?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you want. Really, though, I thought you would’ve done a little better than that. My bad, I guess. Do you wanna go work on your crops? Mine?” Techno looked at him incredulously, managing to express disbelief through a slow-growing headache. 

“After that? Seriously?” Dream scoffed, shoving him a little as the arm around Techno’s shoulder disappeared. He stumbled slightly, legs aching a bit from where they had been caught in the crossfire of the assault on his stomach and back. 

“It wasn’t that bad, c’mon. I thought you were supposed to be the Blood God?” At the mention of the title, Techno straightened up a bit, nodding. 

“Yeah, yeah, I am. Whatever, let’s go mining.” Dream nodded in approval, walking to their usually mining spot after picking up the weapons he had abandoned. The mask had been pulled back over his face and Techno couldn’t tell what he had been thinking as he had before. 

It was a bit unsettling, but there was no other company on his little island, so he followed the man with his chin held up high. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its starting >:) im not gonna lie this is the most fun ive had writing, so im hoping that some of you arent going to be too upset about dream and his recent classes (ignoring the fact that this whole fic was written with the intention to upset people) definitely one of my more exciting chapters, imo. anything you guys think i couldve done better in the long run? or just in the chapter? feel free to comment :) thanks for reading and the support on this fic so far <3


	6. Chapter 6

Techno found out that he was banned from the Nether altogether two days after the training incident, which he had made an effort to forget about over his resource-gathering trip. 

Dream hadn’t come along for it this time, which had been surprising from the man who had usually made it a point to follow him around and see everything he was doing at all times. Techno couldn’t say that he wasn’t relieved about the short break, but he also missed the man’s constant company. It was a strange juxtaposition to get used to because the consistency of his schedule came mostly from scheduling his tasks around Dream’s daily visits. 

It was jolting, to say the least. Techno’s two days without the man had been strange in the sense that every time he turned and expected to say something to the man, he was met with a blank space. He had even gotten accustomed to mining without much worry for his surroundings, getting a sharp reminder that he needed to watch the area around him after getting an arrow in the shoulder from a skeleton that he hadn’t paid attention to when he had gotten into the zone. 

Tommy had come to mind a lot during those two days as well, especially in the night when he had nothing to focus on except for the ceiling and his own thoughts that he couldn’t escape. It was depressing to stare up into the roof of his shoddy wooden shack and cry to himself about how he wasn’t good enough for his family to love, even if it was just for fifteen minutes he would spend sniffling before wiping his face of traitorous tears he wished he could escape. 

Every family was complicated, Techno had come to learn. His first family had been a group of Piglins who protected him until he had grown old enough for his lack of Piglin features to be noticed and promptly abandoned him. Phil had been his family after that, and along with Phil came Wilbur and Tommy. All the two brought for him were conflicting feelings of jealousy, hero-worship, sadness, anger, and love that he held onto as long as he could until it was near impossible. 

What Techno hadn’t realized until he had joined Dream’s lands was just how many different ways his family could branch out. He hadn’t realized the significance of the statement that real family could be found outside of blood until he had found Niki comforting his untouchable big brother in Pogtopia after Techno had tried and failed to pull him away from his raving. He hadn’t realized it was beyond saving until he had been forced to shoot Tubbo and came face to face with Tommy and eyes that held more emotion and care in his bones for this man than he ever did Techno as kids. 

Maybe he was remembering wrong, Techno wouldn’t doubt that. His memory when it came to the older days were spotty with truths mixed with lies he tried his best to ignore for the sake of protecting his feelings. Everything about the incident with Wilbur had been burned into his mind, but anything before that, before there was animosity between him and his siblings, was fuzzy in the magical way that made someone feel like they were floating through clouds on wings of nostalgia. 

Techno only wished that Tommy had given a damn about him when he had gotten exiled in the first place. Surely he wasn’t so much of a monster that he had been deserving of a fate where he would be left with nothing and no one to rely on, save for Dream, surely his brother cared for him. He knew his crimes against Tommy’s new family had been something unforgivable, but he still had the littlest inkling of hope that he would still find himself with someone to lay his head on when he got tired. 

But yet… 

Tubbo’s speech when he had exiled Techno was something that he hadn’t been able to shake from his mind in the more recent days of his exile, despite how he had brushed it off earlier in the month. Dream’s constant visits and words had started putting life into perspective around him, whether it was just him sharing short anecdotes or their talks late in the night before he left where Techno would scrounge up whatever meat he had to cook for dinner and listen to the man’s advice. 

( _“L’manberg is not a place for monsters,” Tubbo had said, imposing and tall in his rule with Tommy by his side with blank eyes that wouldn’t focus on Techno. “We have come to the conclusion that you shall be banished from our lands for the crimes you have committed against the interests of this country. Referencing the withers, the festival, and all other traitorous deeds that may have been committed away from the public eye.”_

_“L’manberg is… is the home of the free. We will not be stopped by- by tyrants and villains who try to bring down our lands to nothing, for L’manberg is… L’manberg is a people,” Quackity butt in, finishing the sentence firmly. “L’manberg is a people, and we have no place for you here. Please escort him from our lands, and fight back should he oppose our grateful attempt at a peaceful detainment.”_

_Tommy had said nothing then, arms crossed as Techno had been dragged away._ ) 

Was he really so much of a monster that his own brother couldn’t defend him, Techno found himself thinking with tears running down his face in quick succession in the middle of the night, dripping down the bridge of his nose as he laid on his side. He never made the effort to wipe the tears away, only washing his face in the morning with water from the beach that was probably worse for his skin than a dirtied cloth was. He just never had the energy to boil it and wait in the mornings after depressing nights like those. 

Maybe it was because of one of those emotionally confusing nights that he had the day before Dream had come back that he had reacted the way he did to everything around him. 

Techno was sitting on a log outside his small shack, whittling away at something absently as he ignored the headache building up in his head. It was mostly due to the voices all shouting over each other and he was unable to figure out what they had been trying to tell them, despite how urgent it seemed to be. They all were saying different things that he couldn’t pick out and that all overlapped each other so he couldn’t make out a word of it besides Dream’s name is a constant in the mix. 

The man in question had come from the Nether portal again, midway through the field. Techno didn’t bother to get up and throw his armor to the man since he hadn’t bothered making it in the first place, finding it to be a waste of resources, especially with how few resources he had in the first place. It seemed that every time he had brought back more iron and ores he had come back to less than he had. He was pretty sure he was imagining it, but he made sure to mine more than he needed to, leaving him exhausted from the day before as well. 

“Blade!” Dream greeted, shouting as Techno winced, head jolting slightly with pain that stemmed behind his eyes. The man seemed to have taken notice, lowering his voice as he came closer. 

“You alright?” He asked, his voice lowered. Techno nodded, eyes still closed as the man came to kneel in front of him. He didn’t fight as Dream pried the knife and wood from his hands, squeezing his own into the teen’s hands. Techno looked at him through squinted eyes, blinking slowly. 

“Tired. Headache,” Techno forced out, the man nodding as he heard. The grip on his hands hadn’t let go, and Techno found himself wanting to keep them there as long as possible. The warmth was scarily familiar to the Nether and how he had been living when he was almost young enough not to remember it. 

“I think this is as good a time as any to tell you the news, yeah?” Techno nodded, eyes shut as he listened to Dream’s warm voice. 

“You can’t go to the Nether anymore, Blade.” His eyes shot open, looking at the man with an incredulous expression. 

“You can’t be serious,” His voice was raspy as he spoke, panicked slightly with anger slowly weighing into his mind. Dream shook his head, squeezing his hands. 

“No, why would I joke around about this? I-” Techno pulled his hands away from him, betrayed. 

“No no no, no, why would you just- Just ban me from the Nether, what the hell? What’re you even- what’s the point, are you serious?” Dream moved back a bit, moving to get up slowly. 

“C’mon, Blade, just hear me out for a moment, and you’ll know that-” Techno got up as well, anger jolting in his bones as he ran a hand through his matted pink hair. It was dirty and greasy and Techno hated the feeling, but it was one of the only stims he could do while he was in front of Dream without feeling like an idiot. 

“You’re being _stupid,_ Dream, what do I even get from being banned from the Nether? It’s- it’s like, like, I’m not gonna go back to fucking _L’manberg,_ they all _hated_ me, it’s so-” 

“Blade, just-” 

“No, this is so fucking _dumb,_ Dream, what the hell, I-” 

“Blade-” 

“Dream-” 

“ _Technoblade!_ ” 

Techno came to a stop as the man shouted, voice dangerous as Techno turned back to him, finding himself staring at him. Dream seemed different, for a moment. The soft voice was gone, along with the quiet adoration that the man held for him in late nights. As Dream stalked forward, Techno stumbled back. 

“You couldn’t just stop and _listen,_ for one second. I told you, I tried to tell you _why,_ I was going to explain, but here you are, all you do is interrupt me and make me shout over you.” Dream’s voice softened near the end, pushing his mask away from the bottom of his face and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. 

“I don’t like _shouting,_ Technoblade. But you’re forcing me to and I don’t want to, so just listen to me next time, okay?” Techno felt guilt engulf him, nodding slowly as he moved to sit back down on the log he had been on before. Dream didn’t retake his place in front of Techno’s log, leaving his hands empty and cold. 

“Now, _listen._ I said you weren’t allowed in the Nether because you’re _sick._ Sick and delirious. You can’t take care of yourself and you aren’t ready for something so strenuous. I was _trying_ to tell you, but all you did was, was _talk_ over me and do nothing but argue. I was looking out for you, Blade.” Techno nodded quietly, feeling ashamed as he stared at his feet, drawing one knee up to his chest and hugging it, his chin pressed on top. There were small, humiliated tears growing in his eyes as he listened to Dream lecture him. 

“I really didn’t want to do this, but you need… Consequences. For your actions,” Techno’s eyes snapped up, looking at Dream with wide eyes. 

“What- what does that entail?” Techno asked, voice shaking slightly. Dream stared at him before looking back at his house. His eyes followed Dream’s, silence ringing between the two of them as after a sudden movement, Dream stalked towards the house, throwing the doors open. Techno followed, moving fast as he could to follow the man. 

When he had caught up to the man, he had heard the sound of TNT hissing from the middle of his home. Dream had stepped away to avoid the blast, but Techno had rushed up. The last thing he saw was the string of burning to the end before a loud bang and a flash of light took out the majority of his vision, throwing him back into the ground with a harsh thud. 

A ringing overtook his ears, drowning out shouting voices and making everything blurry. He could feel stinging pains all over his body but they hadn’t registered, back aching as he coughed, head still spinning. Techno’s headache had developed beyond what it was before, as well as nothing that happened to register in his brain. 

Techno laid still, panting rapidly as he laid a shaky hand over his chest. He struggled to sit up, taking sight of his shack through half squinted eyes. The majority of it was smoldering, on fire, and being burnt away by flames. There was debris around the majority of the area, and a pit that had grown in place of the home. His storage underneath the home had been blown up as well. 

He had nothing. He had been brought down from everything great. He had netherite, he had weapons and armor and everything he needed and then had been brought down to _nothing._ Techno had no one, his brothers had abandoned him, he was alone, alone and unloved and _useless._ No one wanted him because he was useless and couldn’t be a weapon for them. He needed his things to be worth something, but he had fucking _nothing._

Absolutely nothing. 

A hand rested on his shoulder, making its way up into his dirty hair and running his fingers through it slowly. 

Nothing but Dream. 

“I’m sorry, Blade,” Dream said softly, Techno staring blankly at his home with eyes that didn’t register the sight in front of him. “But you need a bit of _discipline._ Everything I’ve done so far was just… for your own good. I knew that you would be having a tough time with the exile, that’s why I kept coming back again and again when I could’ve been at home and left you by yourself. I’ve been there for you, yeah?” 

Techno nodded slowly, eyes closing as Dream continued stroking his hair. 

“I had to, you know? For your own good. I’m sorry, but this is what I had to do. You understand, right?” The hand that had been carding through his hair had distracted Techno, body still shaking in the aftermath of the explosion as he struggled to come to terms with everything around him. Techno curled up a little closer to him, focusing on Dream’s touch as his body floated in something of a void-like state, unable to focus on anything. He nodded anyway, agreeing with Dream. 

Dream leaned over his shoulder slightly, finding him with tears running down his cheeks. A small noise of discontent sounded as Dream dropped down to crouch in front of him, wiping his face of tears. Techno didn’t move much, letting them continuously stream down his cheeks. 

A moment later, and Techno was face-to-face with Dream, mask off with the man’s face in his bleary view. For some reason, he didn’t understand why, but this was the final straw for him, face crumpling as Techno held back a small sob, the man pulling him into a hug. Techno’s face was pressed into his shoulder and he shook as he fisted a hand into the front of the man’s shirt, Dream shushing him gently as he let him cry his eyes out. 

Dream’s voice was warm in his ear, and his arms were warm around him. Dream’s hand was warm in his hair, and Techno was warm all around. Techno was so, so warm, but he was still so cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))) this was my fave to write by far, i really hope i managed to pull it off right. also im sorry if i responded to someones comment but not yours! i love to respond to the long ones, but i have to be careful not to let too much of my plans slip but do know that they are so very much appreciated. what did you think of this chapter, btw? hope you all liked :)


	7. Chapter 7

After about two more weeks of repeated schedules that Techno had yet to stray from, the teen found himself with more bruises and fewer tears as the days flew by. 

Dream was certainly a great teacher for what he needed to accomplish, which was essentially a way to get Phil’s love back in its entirety, as well as Tommy’s by extension. He hadn’t bothered to worry about Ghostbur, for the sole fact that he hated to see the ghost in the state he was in. Where he had come to the conclusion about love, however, was more on his own than the fault of Dream. 

It had just made sense, really, that he would try and get their love back by offering himself as another weapon to use. Techno knew that he had little use outside of combat and was stripped of his riches, he had to grow his inventory of weapons once more, as well as learning to get better in fighting to earn Tommy’s favor once more. It had worked in Pogtopia, so surely it would work here, too. 

He wasn’t exaggerating, though sometimes it felt like he did. Dream told him he had a tendency to naturally over exaggerate his injuries after training sessions as something that his Piglin side would be accustomed to. Techno wasn’t completely sure how it worked, but it all sounded professional, so he assumed the man had read it in a book somewhere a long time ago. 

Dream was a natural fan of books, he had found. The texts of old were something that Techno found great interest in, but no one else seemed to share that interest save for crude reimaginings of them in ways that would be considered disgraceful. He was a fan of Greek myths, though Dream was a fan of the old ones that were more so fairytales than they were myths. The one that he had mentioned when Techno was dozing off in his newly made burrow- (A small little hole in the ground he had claimed as his own, digging it out and making his own little structure underground. It was cool and he had a small trap door that would open to the surface. Dream never really came down there in the day, only at night.)- was the story of the Town That Went Mad, an old story that Phil had told him when he couldn’t sleep by the fireplace before Wilbur and Tommy entered his life. 

Techno had never remembered the story properly if he was being honest. It was told to him so long ago that he didn’t have the heart to tell Phil he barely remembered it when he knew the man used to like the memory of spending time with him. 

Dream’s rendition of it, however, seemed distinctly different in a way he couldn’t quite explain. The story was the same as he vaguely remembered, but there were little things that he couldn’t help but catch in the process of his retelling. There was always a little hint of emotion when he spoke of Miles and Robin, whether they be positive or negative feelings in the long run. The story was a lot more bittersweet than he had remembered it, and the name Karl had never once come up in Phil’s telling. 

It was odd, in a sense, but everything about Dream was odd. It was odd how he would go from sparring to beating down on him in an instance where he’d accidentally go too far and leave him with minimal health potions to heal up with them. He was odd in the way he left little gifts for Techno the day after those training sessions, even though Techno had already forgiven him for them. Dream never asked for an apology, but Techno could tell it made him feel better in the long run. 

The two months he had spent with Dream were probably the strangest that he had ever experienced, but he wouldn’t trade them back for the choice of having L’manberg have another proper government without at least a little intervention from him. Even if it hadn’t worked, he had made a stand against his siblings after all the years he had spent under their thumbs as their little weapon. 

His thoughts were jumpy, Techno inferred after a train of thought like this one had appeared in his head once more. The teen couldn’t figure out if he wanted to go back to his siblings and father and be exactly what they wanted or if he wanted to defect in favor of becoming closer to Dream and being less of someone that would just be controlled as a weapon. It led to nights of quiet contemplation as he listened to Dream hum to himself while he faked sleep, the man’s silhouette poised outside the entrance of his small burrow. He had always left a few minutes later, shutting the trap door solidly. 

A lot of confusion had occurred ever since Techno found himself in exile with Dream as his only friend. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. 

There wasn’t much to feel about it now that he had something to do until Dream came along, Techno found himself thinking as he made his way out of his small burrow, pulling himself out after throwing a few tools he would need out after him. Dream wasn’t going to be around until later, so he had the first bit of his morning to himself. Since his crops had been blown up, however, he wouldn’t get a chance to have them for breakfast as he would do on most other days. 

He didn’t let him bother him, instead deciding to go out and chop a few trees in the area down, maybe venture out to find different varieties in woods as well. As much as he liked being practical, oak wood was beginning to get a bit sore on the eyes, and he wanted to spice things up in his new burrow. 

It was a bit unfair to just call it a burrow, per se. It was more of a cellar he had made to be a bit bigger and fit in a bed and some storage in there as well. The trapdoor had led into a ladder that he could climb down and enter the lit up room, usually done by oil wick lamps that he had managed to make with Dream’s permission. 

There weren’t any decorations in it, mostly bare. He didn’t spend that much time in it compared to his last home, so he didn’t see the point in it. Even if he was injured after one of Dream’s training or shouting sessions, he wouldn’t bother to wait for the wounds to heal before he decided to get back on his feet altogether. 

He had gotten used to the pain, even if that was a bit morbid to think about. It was in the slightest sense, but Techno didn’t think it mattered much anymore in comparison to everything else that had happened. It was an advantage when it came to fighting, at the very least, since he wouldn’t be slowed down after adrenaline faded from his body and made him aware of wounds he had amassed. 

Dream had gotten into the habit of yelling when he had fallen during their training sessions, but Techno didn’t blame him, it was frustrating to be interrupted midway through a good sparring session.

Techno snapped out of his thoughts as his feet hit something cold, looking down to see snow at his feet rather than the dried grass he was used to. His head snapped around, looking for something familiar in his surroundings he could identify during his zoned-out walk, finding nothing familiar. He was greeted with nothing but snow and spruce trees as snowflakes floated down gently. 

He was- was he lost? Did this count as running away? He didn’t mean to run away, he had just gotten distracted trying to get wood. Techno roamed through the woods as he shivered, wishing he had brought his cape along with him. The soft fur that donned the neckline would certainly help, but he had left it folded underneath his bed, stitched up after it had been nearly destroyed in the explosion that his old shack hadn’t survived. 

Techno wrapped his arms around himself, putting his ax away in favor of keeping himself warm. The near-brown sleeves of his previously white button-up were rolled down and his hands were pressed under his armpits in an attempt to keep himself from getting frostbite. There seemed to be no end to the trees that he roamed through, and at that point, he was sure that he had gotten turned around in his wandering as he had faded into his thoughts in the original walk there. 

Phil was used to getting him out of funks like that one, Techno remembered absently, teeth chattering as he tried to ignore how his nose was starting to sting a little. He was sure that his cheeks were flushed near-red by this point, his body not built for the cold in the slightest. It was definitely the Piglin in him that influenced him in that sense. 

The teen pushed his way through the snow anyway, eventually encountering a little clearing, finding a small tent sitting in the middle. He paused at the edge, moving back into the foliage and moving to hide amid a bush by a tree. The dress shirt helped him blend in, and the tent was far enough for him to be hard to spot within the brush. 

After a bit of waiting, Techno leaned forward, ready to sprint away when he froze, catching sight of someone coming back from the opposite side of the clearing. Techno crouched down, burrowing himself into the snow up to his mid-calf and sitting on his heels, not breathing too hard in fear of alerting whoever it was of where he was. Techno’s breath caught in his throat as he realized who it was. 

“ _ Tommy, _ ” __ He breathed, hand coming up to cover his mouth a moment after to stop himself from speaking up against his own will. His eyes followed the man, wide and unbelieving. 

It had been nearly two months since he had seen the twenty-one year old, and Techno found himself longing for his presence almost as much as he wanted him gone. It was strange to see him without Tubbo by his side, and he hadn’t known why he was in the middle of a snowy plain with just a tent to his name, either. Maybe he had been sent out on some secret mission on his own. 

Maybe he had been kicked out too, he found himself hoping. Techno immediately squashed that thought down, ashamed that it had popped in his head in the first place. He shouldn’t have wished for his older brother to deal with something like that, even if he had been upset in the beginning. He was mature, he wasn’t going to jump on a train to hate on him if there was no reason. 

And yet, it was Tommy who had abandoned him. Tommy who didn’t care, Tommy who cared more about Tubbo, Tommy who watched him get dragged away into exile on his own with one other person to rely on. 

Techno watched Tommy as he dragged a bag behind him, most likely with a carcass to harvest for food. Techno’s stomach grumbled quietly at the sight of the food as the teen swung panicked eyes to his stomach and back to Tommy. He was standing tall, looking around for a moment before returning to his task. Techno felt something entirely separate from hunger as he realized Tommy hadn’t been smiling and hadn’t been since he first entered the clearing. 

After a couple more minutes of silence, Techno shifted to get up, ready to leave as Tommy settled down to skin the animal he had caught on his little hunting expedition. He moved to stand, but his foot caught on a root and Techno found himself slipping forward, rattling the bush as he reached out with his hands to catch himself and shook newly fallen snow off of its thin branches. 

As Techno’s eyes snapped up to Tommy’s, the man stared back, knife in hand and carcass over his lap. 

A moment of silence followed before Techno’s frantically beating heart overtook his logical thoughts and he turned tail to run, ignoring how cold his hands and limbs had gotten in his small stalking session. He heard a yell behind him and ran faster, terror shooting through his body and proving to work as adrenaline. The footsteps behind him were heavy but Techno knew he was faster than Tommy, faster than he would ever be. 

Techno stumbled as he ran, wincing as he landed on his slightly sprained leg harder than he had anticipated. A new vein of fear filled his heart as he realized he hadn’t accounted for the injuries he had amassed throughout his two-month exile, breath catching in his throat as he found himself out of breath quickly. 

He found himself compromising by throwing himself into the next long branch he saw, twisting around the trunk of the tree to climb up and hide within the needles that poked at his pale skin. Techno had settled himself in just as Tommy ran by, a blur of blue and red as he called Techno’s name into the distance. 

Techno breathed out a small sigh of relief before seeing him stop a bit ahead, turning back to the small clove that Techno found his tree in. His breath came out in small pants that he tried to swallow in an attempt to keep himself discrete. 

He knew he failed when Tommy looked straight up to where he was, eyes locking through the needles. 

“Blade?” Tommy called, slowly walking closer to the tree. Techno scrambled away and closer to the trunk, shaking his head as he stayed silent. 

“Is that you?” Tommy pressed, ax in hand as he peered up to catch sight of the teen. 

“Go… Go away,” Techno breathed out through trembling lips, hands in an iron grip around the branches as he stared down in terror. Tommy frowned, scoffing slightly as he stood at the base of the tree. 

“C’mon, Blade, don’t be stupid. Tubbo sent me out here to get you back to L'manberg for trial, and-” 

“I don’t fucking want to go back!” Techno cried out, righteous anger overtaking his words for a moment before he shrank back. Tommy scowled from where he was, whacking at the tree with his ax once to make a point as it swayed with the hit. Techno scrambled up a bit higher, his foot slipping and sending him toppling down to the roots of the tree. 

He was left to look up at Tommy’s intimidating presence, standing over him with an ax in hand and an angered look on his face. 

“Now look who’s the stupid one,” He crowed slightly, yelling after Techno kicked at the hand that was outstretched to him. 

“I’m not coming with you,” Techno repeated, glaring up at Tommy as he pressed his back to the trunk. Tommy gave him a similar glare in response. 

“You should’ve thought about that before you set withers on L’manberg,” Tommy shot at him, grip on his ax tightening. 

“They deserved it,” Techno hissed, tears burning in his eyes. 

“You’re a  _ monster! _ ” 

“I fucking know!” He shouted back, Tommy recoiling slightly at the volume of the words. 

“I know I’m a monster and that you hate me and- and you fucking want me to  _ die  _ and you wished it was fucking, fucking  _ me  _ instead of Wilbur, I know you wish Phil put that damn sword through me instead, I know, I know, I  _ know,  _ just,  _ please _ , leave me alone, please leave me alone. I’m not fucking bothering anyone, no one cares, I know, just let me stay how I am and everything- you’ll forget about me, okay?” Techno’s vision had blurred in the midst of his rambling, leaving Tommy with a red and blue smudge in his eyes as he rubbed at his eyes with a furious hand. 

He flinched back as a hand reached towards his face, arms coming in front of his face in an automatic x-shape as Tommy pulled his hand back. The man seemed taken aback for words as Techno gasped through tears, wiping his face on his arms as his hands moved from their defensive position. 

“Blade-” 

“Blade? What’re you doing here?” Techno’s eyes snapped to the left, Tommy’s following as he narrowed his eyes at the man. His ax was re-equipped in a moment, the teen across him stumbling to his feet once more.

“I- I, um, I was looking for wood, and-” Tommy interrupted, voice brash as he spoke. 

“Why the fuck are you here, bitch?!” Dream looked to him with something akin to amusement through his mask, making shivers crawl up Techno’s spine. 

“You haven’t heard?” At the stony look, he continued. “Me and your little brother have been getting on great since you exiled him. Isn’t that right, Blade?” 

Techno found himself nodding automatically, arms wrapped around himself as Tommy gave him something close to a look of betrayal. He flinched at it, shuffling away from his side to be closer to Dream’s side. The man walked forward in response, meeting the teen at the halfway point and wrapping a dull green-sleeve around him that provided more warmth than he found in Tommy’s eyes. 

“Blade, I dunno what the  _ fuck  _ you’re doing with this prick, but-” Dream cut Tommy off, looking at Techno for a moment. 

“Do you want to go, Technoblade?” Tommy looked ready to interrupt before Techno looked between the two of them with impossibly large eyes and looked back to Dream before nodding faintly, one arm hesitantly wrapping into his sweater. 

Tommy’s expression was one akin to horror and resentment as the other man pulled out his shining Netherite sword, one that Techno shied away from in the slightest. Dream tilted his head in contemplation as Tommy stood with his lips pursed before swinging his stone ax into the ground in front of him and turning tail, stalking away at a rapid pace. 

Techno stood with shivering limbs for a few minutes before Dream turned the teen to face him properly, hands on his shoulders with the Netherite sword put away. The man pulled his mask to the side, a worried expression replacing the porcelain smile as guilt pooled in Techno’s stomach. 

“What were you thinking, going all the way out here?” Techno couldn’t help the few tears that escaped his eyes as Dream wiped them away, the teen shaking his head as the words repeated in his head over and over. 

_ You’re a monster. You’re a monster. You’re a monster.  _

“I just- just wanted some wood, and-” Techno gasped out, one hand pressing against his heart as Dream placed a gloved hand over it, curling his fingers with the others in reassurance as he shushed him. A frustrated sob escaped him as he got irritated with himself. He had cried too much over the past two months as is, he didn’t want to cry over Tommy, even if he hadn’t even begun to process their short conversation. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Blade. Just don’t do it again, yeah? You already know they hate you, you can’t go back now, yeah?” Dream’s voice was soft as he spoke, Techno nodding along as he wiped at slow tears that tracked down his face. 

“I won’t, I won’t. I’ll stay at the beach.” Dream nodded, a smile on his face as he smoothed Techno’s hair down while the teen scrubbed at his eyes with both hands.

“Perfect, Blade. Let’s get you home now, yeah?” Techno nodded, not letting Dream let go of his grip on his hand. 

“Thank you for coming for me,” Techno rasped, Dream patting his shoulder in response as the two made their way from the clearing. The man shot a look at a lone figure in the trees far off as he left, a self-satisfied smile on his face out of view of Techno. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im just sitting here smiling guys im so excited its revving up now. thats all i have to say i think, ill let this speak for itself. thanks for reading and extra thanks for commenting!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / self-harm, abuse

The few weeks after the incident in the woods were spent stepping on eggshells around Dream, if Technoblade could summarize it shortly. 

It was something confusing to be brought home with no consequences to his actions, especially when he realized that Dream promised that worse things would happen than now if he ever decided to run. He was simply lucky that the man hadn’t decided that his excursion wasn’t defined as running away in other words, otherwise he was certain his sprained leg would turn to two broken knees. 

Dream’s behaviour after the incident had been confusing as well, though his words were enough to leave him reeling for a couple hours. It wasn’t anything too out of character, but Dream had insisted he had gotten sick from the cold, and delirious from the illness he developed in the middle of the night. So much so that he had hallucinated Tommy in the middle of the woods and began running off into the middle of nowhere, frightening Dream in the process. 

(“He wasn’t there, Blade,” Dream whispered to his forehead, cradling the teen’s head in his pale hands as Techno shook his head weakly, the bitter aftertaste of medicine sitting on his tongue and staining his throat with saliva. Dream shook his head in response, whispering quiet words into his hair as Techno laid down in bed until he had begun repeating them as he fell asleep unconsciously. 

“Tommy wasn’t there, you were sick, you were sick and imagining things, he didn’t come for you, no one came for you except for me, I found you talking to yourself, no, I never threatened anyone, you were sick, you were sick and needed help and you were lucky I was there to help you through your illness before you had died, left to your own devices.” Dream whispered to him, letting Techno hum himself to sleep with a sore throat and doze off under sleeping medicine that he had been saving. 

When Techno had awoken the next day, he hadn’t been able to figure out if the encounter was a dream or not.) 

It was mostly hard to believe because Tommy had acted just as he would on any other day, if not a bit more stoic compared to how he usually was. The twenty-one-year-old never made it a habit to be silent unless it was unavoidable, and the way he had been silent in their supposed stand-off had left Techno reeling, unable to figure out if Dream had been telling the truth. The man had no reason to lie to him, but it wouldn’t hurt to have confirmation of his theory. 

Techno had snuck back to the clearing he found Tommy, and there was no evidence that the man was ever there. The snow was untouched and there were no signs of a lingering campsite in the middle of the field. That day, Techno wrapped the cloak tighter around himself, shivering into the fur as his eyes shone with unbidden tears. 

It felt like he was going crazy, some days. Techno would hear Dream threaten him only for the man to tell him he never said those things to him the next day. Techno used to insist he did, but after a well-earned slap for disturbing Dream in the middle of brainstorming, he had stopped questioning the man as much. It led to the two of them to have better days together, and more training sessions that hadn’t been interrupted as easily. 

The feeling of insanity creeping up on him made him feel uncomfortably close to Wilbur when he had been alive, just the thought of it making his skin crawl with what felt like ants wriggling under his skin. The last thing he wanted was to be tarnished in that way, nor did he want to be killed by Phil. He didn’t doubt that if he had been older, the man would’ve put him down like a dog for what he had done. In a way, his only line of defence was Dream and his age, considering that it was technically illegal to execute minors on the lands he owned. 

It hadn’t accounted for Tubbo at the time, but Techno waved it off with a shaky hand and reminded himself that Tubbo was a man, despite how immature he may have acted sometimes. He had gotten into the habit of doing that when it came to Wilbur and Tommy around the time they had left to make L’manberg. 

Techno wished he could at least see Phil once before he would end up dying on his own, whether it be by his own hand or by befalling to his own hubris when Dream wouldn’t be around. He was far too frightened to bring up this request to the man, though, not wanting to risk his wrath in the case that he would be upset that Techno try to throw his own life away. 

He had been mad enough the day after his impromptu trip out to gather wood, scolding him more than he had the day before and following up with a mild beating session that left him crying into his shirt and wishing he had never left the burrow in the first place. 

It wasn’t like he could leave if he wanted, Techno found himself thinking as he stared up aimlessly at the trapdoor. Dream had added a padlock to the outside in the case that someone would be threatening them and he needed a quick place to hide where no one could find him. More often than not, Techno awoke in the cold and dark far too early and had to wait to be let out when Dream came along. Patience was something he had learned over time, so he didn’t mind it so much as he did when he was first shoved in the pit with little hesitation. 

The first trial of his hiding hole had ended with a sore throat, bruised face, and nails that had been bloody and dotted with splinters from the spruce trapdoor that covered the top of his hole. Techno had gotten used to it after a while, though it had gotten boring in the nights that he would usually spend staring at the stars. It was dark in his hole as well, the lamps often unlit than not. 

Techno had ended up entertaining himself by playing around with a lighter that Dream had dropped a while ago, letting the little flame take up the majority of his attention and pressing it into his arm in an attempt to feel anything other than numbing cold and a feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him want to throw up more often than not. He had learned the hard way that his vomit would freeze if it was cold enough, and he didn’t feel like smelling that for the next couple of weeks. 

The feeling of the flame against his skin was one that had left him with a small burst of adrenaline and shooting pain that had been soothing, in comparison to the quiet contemplation of Dream before he would injure Techno. It was much easier to just inflict pain on himself in punishment rather than wait for Dream’s hammer of justice and figure out if he had been merciful that day. 

While he had that to distract himself when things were too much, he had his own little collection of things to keep an eye on whenever Dream came around, as well as making sure he didn’t come down into the burrow. 

It had been a long few months since Dream had started getting rid of his things, leaving him with virtually nothing but what he was allowed. In some spur of teenage rebellion, Techno had hidden himself a stash of weapons the day after his supposed adventure in the snow had taken place. It had been then he had realized just how vulnerable he was, and so much of his time between then and when the lock had been put on the trapdoor had been spent mining at night in an attempt to build up reserves. 

And he had been successful, for the most part. Techno had diamond armour and a set of diamond tools that he held a great appreciation for. He was still in the process of finding an enchanting book that was well enough for him to use for the enchantments he wanted. All Dream had were fairy tales and all he had were empty books and his notes on Greek mythology from ages ago. He was sure that he’d be successful in his task eventually, as long as Dream never found out. His heartbeat was like a hummingbird's whenever the man went too close to the entrance of his burrow, and it was beginning to wear down on him. 

He wasn’t really sure why he was gathering things in the first place if he was being truly honest. Revenge? Better resources? Missing his previous wealth? To redeem himself in Phil’s eyes? There were so many ways things could go that Techno hadn’t anticipated, and it was hard to make his mind focus on one goal when everything seemed so short-term. 

It was another standard evening for Techno, limping into his burrow with Dream’s watchful eyes following him after another too-long training session, this one with crossbows whose bolts Dream had ripped out of Techno’s limbs with little consideration for his health. Techno had been given a bottle of healing that he pressed to his chest with fervour as he looked up at Dream, watching the man stand overtop him. 

“You did good today, Blade,” Dream cooed, patting his head lightly as though he was a pet. Techno didn’t pull back from the hand, nodding quietly as he rubbed his thumbs over the smooth glass bottle with glowing pink liquid in it. Dream laughed a bit when he noticed what Techno was paying attention to. 

“Rest well,” He said fondly, leaning forward to press a kiss to the crown of Techno’s head. The teen preened under the attention, moving forward as Dream stiffened slightly when he looked past Techno, eyes narrowed over his shoulder. Techno looked to follow his line of sight and his eyes widened, pushing the man slightly as he moved to grab the handle of the spruce trapdoor. 

“Well!” Techno laughed nervously, tugging on the heavy wood. “That was a good day, I think, you should- you should really go, I’m sure you have some stuff to do back in L’manberg and in the- the Greater Dream SMP, I’m sure, you must be tired-” 

Dream pushed past him as Techno moved to stand in front of him, walking backward as the man continuously walked forward. Techno’s voice grew panicked as he grabbed the front of Dream’s shirt, the man pausing in his step right in front of the chests. 

“Please don’t be upset, please, please don’t be upset, I didn’t-” Dream scoffed, pushing Techno aside, letting the teen fall with a thump. The glass of the healing potion shattered, liquid spilling on the ground as Techno scrambled up, moving to press his back against the cool walls of his home, pulling his legs close to his body. It was dead silent as Dream rifled through his things, resisting the urge to butt in and say something in the case he made things worse for himself. 

When Dream flipped open the chest with the armour, Techno couldn’t help but let out a small whimper, clapping a hand over his mouth as Dream’s head snapped towards him. He couldn’t help the panicked breaths that were escaping him, feeling nauseous enough to throw up as the man started to make his way closer to him. When Dream stopped in front of him, Techno looked up, eyes wide as he stammered. 

“D-Dream, I-” Techno was met with a resounding slap in the face, snapping his head to the side as tears trickled down his face, red with embarrassment as white-hot fear flooded him. It had been a long time since the man had been so outwardly angry with him, and Techno was ready to pass out right there and then if it weren’t for the grip Dream had on his chin. 

“What did I do wrong, Blade?” Dream asked him softly, Techno forced to watch his porcelain mask as he spoke slowly. He stayed silent, panting before another slap followed, a shriek sounding as Dream spoke again. 

“What did I do  _ wrong _ ?!” Dream shouted, letting go of his face with a push and standing to pace the small burrow. Techno watched the man with eyes that wouldn’t stray from his path, focusing on not moving out of place. Everything was spinning and he hated it but he had to stay awake because his heart was going so fast that he might die if he closed his eyes. 

“I did good for you, Blade. I taught you to defend yourself, I taught you to take pain in stride, I protected you, I made sure that you wouldn’t die, I kept you fed, I- I fucking visited when everyone decided they  _ hated  _ you and that you deserved to die because you were a  _ monster _ !” The words cut deep into Techno’s heart as he pushed himself into a corner with his chests, shaking violently. He grabbed the cape that he had left on top of one of them and hugged it close to his chest with whitened knuckles. 

“I- I didn’t…” Techno’s voice trailed off, pinched with tears and lacking the air to finish the next sentence. Dream scoffed, shaking his head in the dark of his burrow. 

“I’ve been too patient for too long,” Dream snarled, stalking forward to grab Techno by the arm, hand pressing down on a crossbow wound that hadn’t healed. The teen yelped as Dream tugged him out of the burrow, throwing him onto the ground in front of his burrow with a heavy hand. Techno’s tears had overtaken him as he scrambled back from Dream, desperate pleas falling from his mouth repeatedly. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please forgive me, please, I’m sorry, please, Dream, I didn’t- I’m so sorry,” Techno gasped out between blanks of air and heaving sobs that shook his entire body. Techno held onto the cape with an iron grip, watching Dream as the man threw sticks of TNT into the hole by the bundle. Techno yelped, moving forward with a hand reached out just as Dream shot a fire arrow into the pit. 

The ground beneath him shifted and shook with the explosions, though nothing on the surface changed. The two watched in silence, one in carefully controlled anger and one in horrified silence. 

“Do you see what I have to do?” Dream demanded, turning back to Techno with an accusing finger pointed to the intact trap door and padlock of his burrow. Techno stared back with terror-filled eyes. 

“This is what I have to do when you don’t listen to me. This is what I have to do when you’re  _ useless  _ and cause problems. I have given you  _ far  _ too many chances, Technoblade! It’s time you start taking responsibility for your actions.” Dream breathed out, running a hand through his hair. 

“I hate doing this, I hate being angry with you, but you keep  _ fighting  _ me, what am I supposed to do? Tell me, Blade. What am I supposed to do?” Techno stuttered quietly, swallowing back another sob and shaking his head, hiding his face in the cape. 

“That’s not an-” Dream cut himself off, sighing. With a sudden jerk, Techno was grabbed by the back of his dress shirt collar, the dirtied material somehow not ripping in his grip. The front pressed against Techno’s adam’s apple, making the teen choke momentarily through tears and violent shaking as Dream dragged him back to the trapdoor. 

Techno fell to the ground in an undignified crumple, crying out as he hit a jagged piece of stone on his way down that had previously been smooth bits of wood. The few smouldering pieces of chest and equipment were in the far end of the cave. Techno looked up with wide eyes, watching Dream as he emotionlessly stood above him. 

“Dream, I swear, I… It was to help, I didn’t-” Techno tried to force out, watching the man scoff and shake his head. 

“I’ll come back in a few days,” He said bitterly, “When I’ve decided you’ve learned your lesson.” 

Techno’s eyes widened, hands releasing the grip on the cape to try and scramble up to reach the trap door again. Because as much as he was patient, he was not going to be able to survive more than a night in this smouldering hell pit without panic attacks that he couldn’t  _ handle.  _

“ _ Please,  _ Dream!” Techno begged, tears running down his grimey face. “Please, please, I’m sorry, please, don’t leave me alone, I’m not a monster, I promise, just- just come back, I’m sorry, I won’t eat for three days, I’ll train every hour for the next day, just…” 

His pleads went unanswered as the trap door slammed shut with a resounding thud, the click of a padlock following. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smiles. i think if i ever have a chance of uploading daily and replying to the long comments while im on a school schedule ill have to leave them till the weekend to answer LOL im so sorry if ur one of those people my inbox is just so backed up, but enjoy this chapter anyway bc i certainly enjoyed writing it :)) thanks for reading and commenting if u do! 
> 
> ps this was so hard for me to post for some reason? it wouldnt work on pc so i had to copy paste it off grammarly for safari and paste it into mobile ao3 :P


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / vomiting, blood

Time was slow and sluggish in the little wreck of stone, burning materials, and dirt that Techno had been trapped in. 

The stone had taken up the majority of the small burrow, most of the wood that was previously making up the burrow being either burnt away or singed beyond use. It was depressing when compared to the previous valour the home had been in. It wasn’t too good, but Techno was proud of his little cellar-like home that had replaced his spruce cabin. He never really realized how much he had missed having a proper home until the first one had been blown up, so the second time it was destroyed hurt double as much. 

The passing of time felt like trudging through a slow swamp on a humid day, held back by distractions and mosquitos that would do their best to disrupt a trip. Techno hadn’t been able to figure out how long it had been as he usually did easily, most of his thoughts being thrown off by how he had been crying for a long while after Dream had left. 

A small part of him whispered that the old him would have never done that. A larger part wondered if the old him even existed anymore. 

It would be a sad fucking sight for the Blood God to be reduced to nothing but a snivelling child over nothing short of three months by one person’s hand, but everything had taken a mental toll on him and he couldn’t focus on it when he still had to deal with the physical wounds that came complimentary to the pre-existing emotional ones that he refused to acknowledge. 

Techno had dropped the only health potion he had from Dream when he had been thrown aside to the ground like he was nothing but a piece of trash, and the few bits that had been left on shards of glass had been dissolved into his small scrapes on his hands and healed useless cuts that he could’ve left in favour of healing his crossbow wounds. He had gotten to the point of pain where he rubbed his hands over the wounds in vain, hoping for a bit of the potion effects to rub off on it before he had given up in a fit of violent tears. 

Vomiting was a given, of course, losing his stomach more than once throughout his time stuck in the small burrow. It wasn’t the best for his appetite, nor how much energy he had, considering he had thrown up whatever he had eaten last. It was left rotting in the bottom farthest from the trap door. 

There were little bits of light that poked through the wood, providing him with just a sliver of sunlight in what was mostly dark and abandoned. The materials he had blown up were permanently gone, save for the lighter he had in the pocket of his pants before Dream had gotten upset with him. 

The majority of his days were spent attempting to cauterize his crossbow wounds with what had been a messed-up knife that was half-melted and his lighter. He had to shove his stitched-up red cape in his mouth to bite down on to keep from screaming the first time, only to give up on trying to keep quiet in favour of keeping his last connection to his family intact. Even if Tommy had let go of him, he wasn’t going to let go of the man in turn. He wasn’t going to turn his back on the only family he had for years, even if he had made the mistake once. 

Techno hoped this, at the very least, was enough to repent for the withers he had set loose on the newly taken-back country. He didn’t know what was enough if that hadn’t been, the last three months being put in terrifying perspective through his own thoughts. Shaking hands ran through his bloody, greasy hair as he tried to get an impossible grip on his thoughts as though he could physically hold them in his hands. 

The thing he never realized about constant dark and a break away from Dream was just how clear everything would become to him over his few days? Hours? In his small burrow. Staring up at the ceiling was nothing but a collage of memories of the past three months, splayed out as though it was a projector that he hadn’t been able to turn on before. 

He didn’t like thinking about Dream all that much, Techno learned quickly. After an hour of trying to catch his breath and failing until he practically hacked up blood, he realized it would be a bad idea to try. Techno also figured out that he was probably slowly dying in the process. 

He didn’t even get to see Phil and apologize, he found himself thinking at one point, after spitting out a glob of mucus and blood that had stained broken stone with a dark spot he couldn’t ignore after it had been made obvious to him. It was like he was rotting from the inside like he was just as evil as everyone told him and it was finally catching up through his physical body, as though the consequences of his actions alone weren’t enough. 

Techno thought it had been at least four days when he had next heard of anyone outside his little burrow, footsteps shaking loose dirt from the ceiling to land on the red cape he donned, sliding off the fine material. The teen hadn’t noticed it at first, dismissing it as a mob before realizing that there were voices that came along with the footsteps. 

The wound in his lower stomach that he had cauterized earlier in the week hadn’t been as much as a problem until it was life and death, annoyingly. Techno found himself wincing in pain as he tried to make his way over to stretch and reach the spruce trapdoor. With gritted teeth and gathering something of a standing resolve, he reached up to slam on the trap door repeatedly. 

He didn’t care who it was on the other side, just wanting to escape his fate of death on his own in a small pit that had once been his modest home. It didn’t matter if it was Dream, nor Quackity or Tommy or Phil. He just needed to get out before dirt choked him and came spilling out of his mouth and nostrils and maggots overtook his rotting body in a tomb that wasn’t meant to be. 

“Dream?” He called through the trap door raspily, knocking against it weakly from where he could reach, on his tip-toes to hit the side of his fist against it solidly. His knocks were just loud enough for him to hear the murmuring on the other side of the door to pause, and he repeated the words again, trying to bring his voice above a near-whisper. 

“Dream? Anyone? Please, just- Fuck, anyone, please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,” Techno begged, voice slipping into something close to tears once more as they grew in his eyes once more against his will. He cursed himself before continuing his assault on the door, slumping down to the ground with grit teeth and hissing through them as he pressed a hand over the wound on his stomach. 

His vision spun, and another wave of nausea made its way through him as the spruce trap door was broken, Techno leaning over to his right and throwing up once again, choking on bile and air as nothing came out, hacking out blood that wouldn’t stop as his coughing continued. The person above him yelped, jumping down into the small pit alongside Techno at the moment he started coughing up red. 

Techno couldn’t flinch away in his state, instead deciding to pray that whoever came down to help was either friendly or would put him out of his suffering without dragging it out. He wouldn’t be surprised if they told him they wanted his head chopped off before doing it themselves. 

A hand rubbed circles against his back hesitantly after a few moments, Techno’s white knuckle grip on the red cape around his shoulders growing tighter as he trembled at the touch. It could easily be passed off as a reaction to the vomiting, he reasoned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking at it, pale skin coming back with near-black blood. 

Techno didn’t look up at the man who had come down into the hole with him, hiding his face behind a curtain of hair and sighing quietly, silent tears leaving his eyes in rivulets as he accepted his fate, head spinning. 

“Just kill me,” He whispered, eyes closed as he forced a sob not to escape his lips amid his words. A lump laid in his throat that he actively pushed down, though the burning in his eyes couldn’t be erased. The voice next to him sighed quietly, sounding almost sad before speaking again. 

“Oh,  _ Techno _ .” The teen's eyes snapped open, whipping his head to the side as his mind went to war with itself with less than a moment’s notice.  _ No, no no no, surely not, yes, yes it was him, no no no, this couldn’t be happening.  _

“Phil?” Techno questioned, voice barely a breath as he didn’t dare let himself take another lungful of air in the fear that the man would disappear in front of him the moment he took his eyes off him, or that Techno was just dying from lack of oxygen to the brain and this would be the last thing he saw should he let his death progress as normal. 

A warm hand interrupted his thoughts, breaking his fragile understanding of reality as it cupped his grimey cheek, wiping away soot and tears that had grown clumpy under his eyes. Techno’s pupils flicked from the hand on his cheek to the man’s face. Phil looked so unequivocally  _ sad  _ that Techno couldn’t help the tears that followed in the man’s presence, crumbling at the first gentle touch he had felt in three months. 

The cry tore through his lips, a keening noise escaping him as his hands clawed to grab anything that was Phil, Phil, Phil, holding him close by his black clothes and bucket hat and warm arms around him. Techno’s nose was buried in Phil’s neck, crying open-mouthed against his collarbones as the man shushed him gently, wings slowly encompassing the two of them in the cramped space. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I should’ve come, I didn’t know, I’m sorry, you’re okay now, you’re okay, Techno, Techno Techno Techno, my son, I’m so sorry, so so sorry, I can’t say it enough, but I’m so sorry,” Phil rambled softly, voice warm in his ears as he held onto the words with every bit of resolve he didn’t know he still had after the ordeals of the previous months. Techno couldn’t breathe properly, couldn’t stop himself from shaking and babbling nonsense that hadn’t even formed proper words. All he knew was that Phil was  _ here  _ and Phil was going to help him and he didn’t kill him the moment he saw him. Techno could deal with Phil hating him if it meant the man didn’t want him dead. 

The feathers from the man’s wings tickled the top of his head, enveloping the two of them in their own small circle of love and tears and adoration that had been missed for a long time as he tried to keep himself from dying in the man’s arms the moment they had been reunited. 

_ “Phil,” _ Techno gasped out, pulling back after what felt like uncountable hours, shaky and tear-stained. The man looked back at him, near-speechless from the state he found the teen in as Techno gripped his forearms tightly. “Phil, my stomach. Phil, please, please help, I- I don’t want to die.” 

His voice cracked on the last word and Phil immediately drew the teen into his arms once more, unfolding his wings from their protective position and cradling Techno to his chest in a bridal hold. The teen’s arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, nearly hurting with how firm the grip was, but he didn’t dare loosen the arms in case Phil would let him go and abandon him in his small pit the way he abandoned him on the island. 

Everything felt floaty, in a way that made Techno want to curl up and die in the hopes that he would at least die of his own accord rather than of blood loss. As Phil shot up out of the small hole, Techno’s grip grew limp on the man, head lolling slightly as he resisted the urge to fall asleep in the man’s arms. Techno didn’t even register that the man landed on solid ground again before a cutting voice broke through his thoughts. 

“Don’t let him fall asleep,” Someone said sharply, Techno flinching and curling closer to Phil, eyes opening as much as he could as Phil laid him down on the ground carefully, the second pair of hands joining the first one as his dress-shirt was pulled back to reveal the messily-cauterized wound. Techno didn’t even remember if he did it right in the first place, let alone if it was cauterized at all, and didn’t care to find out by looking. 

A hand snapped its fingers in front of his face, Techno letting out a small whimper at the disorienting noise that had overridden the rest of his senses in a confusing jumble of overstimulation. A quiet but firm voice mixed with a strong and warm one as hands worked on the wound on his stomach. 

A quiet yelp was drawn out of Techno as a cloth soaked in potion was rubbed over his wound, burning it almost as much as the metal knife did. Techno twisted where he laid, hands coming to hold his shoulders down as his vision blurred, flickering between vague visions and black nothing. Tears made their way down his cheeks once more, Techno nearly choking on pleads that came automatically as he forgot where he was in the midst of white-hot pain that wouldn’t stop.

“Dr..eam, please- don’... fuck, please stopitstopstop, please, I’m sor’y, I’m sor…” His words slurred as he squirmed weakly against the hands that held him down as the cloth was taken off his abdomen. Techno pushed upwards in an attempt to move, the hands not budging as he cried more when bandages and soft pads were applied to his wound. 

“I’m sorry,” He repeated, voice fading away as his consciousness slipped away from him as well. He vaguely registered the hands letting go of his shoulders and a faint yell as he faded into nothing, where everything was safe and people didn’t hurt them. 

_ “He’s fuckin’ dying, forget about L’manberg and get him to your stupid fucking base!”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) did u guys see the plot streams today?? ranboos was so damn cool, im being 100 with you. also YAY what u guys have been begging for since i started this!!! after 22k words of pure angst!!! it's phil!!!!!!!! hope u are happy with this update to make up for the past eight chapters. i will be paying very little attention to canon while i write this, so if anything happens during tomorrows streams that doesnt correlate to exactly what i want, it will most likely be ignored for the sake of this fic and the comfort part that comes after the hurt in the hurt/comfort tag. thanks for reading, tell me what you think of techno and phils reunion (finally)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / unintended self harm in the midst of a panic attack

When Techno had woken up, he had been greeted with an unfamiliar warmth that he didn’t think he had felt for a long while, body aching where he knew there were wounds but otherwise toasty in the cloak of a blanket and a spot nearby what he thought was a fireplace. 

It had been hard to forget what had happened before he had passed out, but he very clearly remembered Phil and someone else coming to help him after Dream had trapped him underneath the trap door and in what had been the remains of his burrow. He contemplated the thought of whether it had been a dream or not as he sat up in the bed he awoke in, but from the decorum alone, he could tell it wasn’t. 

His cheek was still buzzing ever-so-slightly, whether it be physically or he was imagining it in his touch-starved state, on the spot that Phil had cradled so gently with his palm. Techno knew that at least that had confirmed his theory right, a sigh of relief making him slump over as he proceeded to pass out again, an arm laid overtop of his stomach protectively underneath the blanket. 

It was much easier to be unconscious than to deal with the pressing issues he knew would come with the fact that Phil had found him in such a vulnerable state and helped him as well. There was always the chance that Phil was fishing for a favour similar to the one that Wilbur and Tommy thought they had back in Pogtopia. He never would have expected the man to do that before, but after learning of the many sides people represented when they didn’t even mean to, he couldn’t help but think that Phil would go to any means to protect his last living son. 

He knew Tommy was leagues more important than him in the end, even if he liked to pretend and complain otherwise. Phil had barely played favourites in their childhood, but even Techno knew well enough to know that he had gotten attention for the wrong reasons in comparison to the other children his age. Tommy was naturally bright and troublesome, it was just a coincidence that Techno made more trouble than him just by existing. Wilbur was perfectly well-behaved until he went insane, so he couldn’t blame the man for going insane. There was just the knowledge sitting on him that he could have prevented all of this if he didn’t show up in the Nether all those years ago in the first place. 

Most of the problems did stem from him, Dream had told him as much. He was responsible for Wilbur’s death, for Tubbo’s scars, for L’manberg’s destruction, for every death that had been suffered at the hand of his blade and fireworks. He knew that he would be better off dead than in Phil’s home, free-loading off the man, yet here he was. 

The wound he had was at least treated properly, Techno thought in an attempt to stay positive despite the circumstances. He ignored the adrenaline that raced through his bloodstream and gathered in the pit of his stomach, trying to pretend it was just another day he had woken up back in the Empire. 

Phil would usually be in the dining area, Techno remembered, eyes flicking around the room nervously as he took in every detail, memorizing what he needed in the case that he needed to make a quick escape in his incapacitated state. He ignored the small part of him that screamed to trust Phil and stay with Phil and make sure that Phil didn’t leave his sights because he knew that if he was used as a weapon by  _ Phil,  _ he would not survive the aftermath. 

The room was made of spruce, the familiar wood making his skin crawl slightly but not enough for him to enter full-fledged panic mode. The room was fairly small, enough space for his bed to be pushed against the wall with the door, next to it with a desk on the side parallel to him. There was a window that he could see directly out of if he sat up in bed, reinforced with trapdoors and curtains rather than glass like the norm. Techno’s lips quirked upwards involuntarily as he recalled Phil’s fondness of the cold. 

Through the little bit of the curtain that was splayed open, Techno could spot what looked like snow and hills, though it wasn’t very obvious. He could tell that they were far out in the middle of nowhere, though he couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or not. His hands flexed nervously against his blankets, one hand reaching up to thumb at the bandages under the thin, soft button-up he wore, oversized and black. It was so clearly Phil that it made Techno want to cry a little bit. 

A knock came upon the door, a quick rap of the knuckles against the door as Techno’s head snapped towards it, the door opening without a response as he shifted away from it and raised his arms just so slightly in the case he needed a quick defence. 

They were lowered completely when he locked eyes with the blond who walked in, wide and unblinking as he struggled to process the situation at hand completely. 

He never did figure out if Tommy was there that night, even though he was pretty sure it was a fever dream he had. Dream wouldn’t lie to him, anyway, but the words that his consciousness came up with still stung, so he shifted further away as Tommy shut the door behind him slowly. It closed with a click, fitting perfectly in the frame in a way that only Phil could manage to pull off. 

“... You’re awake,” Tommy noted, Techno nodding slowly in response. He didn’t want to make too much eye contact with the man, instead opting to look down at his blankets once more. The familiar blue and white pattern with little snowflakes wasn’t unfamiliar to him, bringing back faint memories of the Antarctic Empire that he didn’t think he’d remember after all this time. 

“Well? Is your stomach holding up alright? Chest, too?” Tommy questioned, walking further into the room to close the curtains of the window fully. Techno wet his lips nervously, anxiety clogging up his throat as he opened his mouth to speak. 

“Y-yeah, alright. All good.” Tommy turned back to him with a neutral expression that he used to be much better at decoding when they were kids, leaving him with nothing but stress building in the pit of his stomach. The silence in the room was deafening when compared to the wind howling outside the window that Techno forced himself to ignore. 

“Phil made you some food before he went out for more meat, just a second.” Techno didn’t reply as Tommy walked past him to leave. He listened carefully for his footsteps, hearing them fade to downstairs. As soon as the man was out of earshot, Techno got up from where he was sitting, stumbling to his feet. He hissed as he put pressure on them, realizing they had been bandaged as well. The black dress shirt he wore had been short-sleeved, revealing the bandages on his arms as well. Techno’s breathing picked up slightly as he realized just how many injuries he had, feeling slightly claustrophobic in the room as he shook on his feet. 

His legs felt something akin to jelly, but he forced himself to walk forward anyway, searching through the desk for anything even remotely helpful. It was mostly junk, save for something that caught his eyes as soon as he could hear Tommy return in his earshot. 

It was a lighter, old and white, but when he shook it, he could faintly hear a little bit of fluid. He shoved it in the black pocket of the sweatpants he wore, going back to bed and shoving his legs under the blanket before Tommy would return to open the door. 

When the man did open it, Techno was greeted with the wafting smell of stew that made his stomach grumble in a way that made Tommy smirk at him in amusement. He ignored the look as Tommy handed over the tray, a metal spoon sitting in it alongside the large, underfilled bowl. 

“Don’t eat too much,” Tommy warned absently, moving to sit on the edge of the bed near his feet. Techno couldn’t help but freeze for a split second as he recognized the words as Dream before nodding, blowing on the spoonful he held shakily and taking a small sip, most of it left in the utensil. Tommy frowned just out of his field of vision and Techno couldn’t help the shiver that crawled up his back in a buzz. 

A few more minutes of this repeated before Tommy seemed to have reached his limit, snapping at Techno.

“What’s wrong with you?” The question was blunt, unforgiving in its phrasing and tone as Tommy’s hand curled into a fist where it laid on the blankets loosely. Techno flinched at the quick movement, pulling his legs up to his chest with wide eyes trained on Tommy’s face. He resisted the urge to drag his gaze away and to his knees, forcing his voice to be level. 

“Nothing’s  _ wrong  _ with me,” Techno bit back, voice coming out stronger than he anticipated, eyes narrowing in the process. The answer didn’t seem to satisfy Tommy, the man rolling his eyes as he stood up with a sigh. 

“You know you don’t need to be all  _ hypothetical _ and  _ vague  _ with me, bitch. Just trying to figure out what the fuck happened to you out there.” A flare of rage pushed through Techno’s placid demeanour, leaving his lips without a second that. 

“Well, you don’t need to  _ be  _ here with me, so leave,” Techno scoffed, regretting the words the moment he said them. His brain screamed at him that he had messed up, that he was going to die and they couldn’t stop what was going to happen, that Tommy was pissed. 

It appeared he was, the frown on his face turning to a scowl automatically. A resounding ‘you fucked up’ played over and over in Techno’s head the moment he noticed the movement. 

“Well, we didn’t have to be the ones to save you and take pity on you after you ran off with Dream and betrayed L’manberg  _ again.  _ You could be on trial there right now if it weren’t for  _ me  _ deciding not to take you straight to them as they told me to, so it’d be nice if you’d quit back talking.” Tommy pointed a finger at Techno accusingly, the teen flinching away from the hand automatically. 

His breaths were shallow, but Techno made a point to swallow the pleads that had been dying to spill out of his mouth and shot back. 

“I never betrayed L’manberg. You didn’t listen to me.” Techno’s hands twisted into the blankets. 

“We listened to you  _ fine,  _ you just decided to be a fucking prick.” Tommy’s eyes were narrowed in familiar anger, falling into the same pattern Pogtopia had grown used to after the festival. 

“I said no government.” 

“You killed Tubbo!” 

“So what? He deserved it,” The words came unbidden from Techno’s lips, and he flinched as Tommy slammed his fist against the wooden end of the bed, loud enough to sound like a gunshot in silence. 

“You’re a terrible fucking person. I should’ve dragged you back to L’manberg the day I saw you in that stupid field.” Techno’s confusion grew at that moment, head hurting as he ignored the statement to shoot poisonous words at Tommy that he tried to stop that just… didn’t. 

“You should’ve left me alone. I was fine,” Techno hissed, hands shaking as they gripped the blankets tightly. 

“You were  _ dying! _ ” Tommy snapped back. “Dying without paying for what you did to Tubbo-” 

“ _ I’d fucking do it again! _ ” Techno shouted, flinching back as Tommy whipped around to face him. A beat of silence passed between the two as Techno took deep breaths through his nose in an attempt to catch his breath. 

“Say that again,” Tommy said slowly, looking at him with something burning in his eyes that frightened Techno. It was something close to how Dream looked at him in the aftermath of their training. Techno shook his head, breathing picking up as Tommy grew closer to him. 

“Say it again,” Tommy demanded, breathing heavily himself. Techno breathed out a small no, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to hold back tears that had been desperate to fall since Tommy had first entered the room. Techno yelped as Tommy hit the side of his fist against the wall, leaving it there for support. 

“SAY IT!” Tommy shouted, Techno bringing up his arms defensively as tears forced their way out of his eyes. The sight of them brought Tommy’s anger to an abrupt stop, looking at Techno properly for the first time he had come home, but by then it was too late to stop the spiralling thoughts that were building up in his head. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry, please,” Techno begged quietly, arms shaking in their defensive position as he used his legs to push himself into the corner. 

“Blade-” Tommy reached out for him, only to draw his hand back abruptly at a shriek from the younger, more mumbled pleads escaping his lips in jumbles that he tried to decipher in his brain. Techno shook his head, repeating the words again and again as he gripped the blanket tighter. 

“I’ll do better, I’m sorry, I promise, I di-didn’t mean-” A shaky sob escaped him as he shook and folded over the blanket, keening slightly as Tommy backed up, cursing himself as he paced the room. 

“Fuck, Blade, I’m sorry, what’s- What do I do? What do I do, what the fuck-” Tommy stumbled over his words, running a hand through his hair as Techno shook his head repeatedly, fingers clawing at his upper arms in an attempt to distract himself from the loss of breath. Tommy’s eyes widened, moving forward to pull his hands away from him. 

All Techno saw was Dream swinging at him with a weapon, his mumbles growing to shrieks as Tommy pressed his fingers into Techno’s, lacing them together as he sat on the bed in front of him, forcing the teen into his arms. Apologies were rattled off in multitude as Techno shrieked and fought and tried to breathe, arms stinging and cool with little rivulets of blood dripping down the length of the pale skin. 

Techno gasped for breath, Tommy directing him by pressing one of the hands interlocked with his to his chest, taking exaggerated breaths incredibly slowly. 

“Repeat this, again and again, and again,” Tommy pleaded with Techno, waiting for the teen to respond with a shaky nod before stopping, only breaking the shaky silence now and then to remind him. Techno’s breathing grew less heaving as time went on, shoulder slumping as the crown of his head was pressed against Tommy’s shoulder, tears dripping down his face in slow succession. 

Heavy breathing was the only noise in the room for a long few minutes, neither of the two moving from where they sat as Techno breathed in shakily. 

“I missed you,” Tommy said quietly, voice ashamed as he said as much. Techno ignored the nagging voice that told him that it was a rotten lie, even if it was right.

“You’re a bitch,” Techno breathed out, his voice on the verge of breaking again and thoroughly tired. Tommy couldn’t help the quiet chuckle that followed, running a hand through his pink hair slowly, his touch gentle compared to the anger that had been burning in his bones since L’manberg had been destroyed at his and Wilbur’s hands. 

All Tommy wanted to know now was who had damaged his brother beyond repair and leave their presence as a bloody spot in someone’s life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry to my sbi luvrs who wanted tommy and techno to be happy LOL i just cannot see them meeting peacefully when u look at them in the terms of: techno, out of control of his life and traumatized being confronted with tommy, grudge holding man who had been angry since tubbos death in the festival. hope u guys liked this tho, i am so glad that people like this story so much
> 
> ps. might write a ranboo fic because!! techno phil ranboo friends pog!! i watched his stream today, it was so good bro <3


	11. Chapter 11

Techno and Tommy made the consecutive decision not to tell Phil about his breakdown when he came home after two more days, though this was mostly decided without words exchanged between either of them. 

It’s something that Techno used to see in Wilbur and Tommy, the non-verbal communication thing. Techno’s never been particularly good when it came to social cues, as well as touching, so he never had a chance to associate the bond that people usually had with touches and inside jokes. Not to say he was an idiot, of course. Just a little slower than the other two. They never wasted the opportunity to make fun of him for it, though, so it was a bit bittersweet to share the experience that he was jealous of with the same brother who made fun of him for it. 

Tommy didn’t seem to care, though he was much quieter around Techno in the aftermath of his short panic attack. The aftercare that resulted consisted mostly of the man wiping his arms clean of blood and wrapping them with similar bandages that dotted his body, adding to his slow mummification. It was horrifying to see his injuries in a quantifiable form, but he wasn’t willing to give Tommy something else to use against him, so Techno let that thought simmer in his mind rather than voice it aloud. 

The man was different from the few memories he held from when he was in Pogtopia and last saw him. Tommy had calmed down a lot, though he couldn’t figure out if it were for better or worse. A lot of his previously happy energy seemed to have been funnelled into single-minded anger in the aftermath of L’manberg’s explosion and the withers that had been spawned. 

After the fight the two had, they stayed far from that topic of conversation, making awkward small talk whenever they had to see each other for longer than a couple of seconds. Tommy had to replace his bandages about two days into his emergence into consciousness, which had taken about forty minutes to do properly with the ointments he needed and everything else that would prove to be helpful. Despite the distractions that Tommy had provided through half-hearted jokes, he could see the worried expression that had built up throughout his injuries being surveyed. He clearly hadn’t been paying attention when Phil saved him, or something along those lines. Techno didn’t blame him for it. 

He didn’t think that if his little brother betrayed him, destroyed what he loved the most, and came crawling to him for help that he would do it with no hesitation or questions asked at all. It was unrealistic to suspect it in the first place, let alone have it be an expectation for his own treatment. Techno was alright with Tommy’s hatred of him, even if the man seemed sorry now. He would rather the man admit what he really felt than keep it bottled up because he had cried a little. 

Techno didn’t sleep very well when he realized that was something Dream had done quite often. 

When he had woken up the next morning, it had been to the smell of food downstairs and a pang of hunger that he hadn’t felt in a while that clawed at his stomach. Techno had sat up, looked around the room and contemplated getting up and joining him before the answer was found for him through a knock on his door and a quiet invitation downstairs. It was probably the softest he had heard Tommy’s voice since before Wilbur’s death, and he didn’t have the heart to turn him down after thinking of the older man. 

Techno stumbled down the stairs, one hand bracing himself on the stairs as the bottoms of his pyjama pants dragged on the ground slightly, feet equipped with socks overtop bandages to try and lessen the pain of his wounds while he walked. His large black button-up hadn’t been replaced, either, just as large and Phil-esque as it had been before. It was old and had been weathered with time, showing off most of the bandages on his chest because of the buttons that would constantly slip out of their holes on the topmost part of his shirt. It was close to what Tubbo had been wearing, save for the fact that this was distinctively Philza. 

When he had made his way downstairs, he was greeted with the sizzling of a pan on a stove, sitting himself down at the table silently in an attempt not to draw attention from Tommy. He wasn’t sure how the man was feeling and didn’t want to risk upsetting him in the case that Techno had pissed him off when he was already feeling ready to burst with anger. 

He had slowly begun to drift where he sat, trying to force his eyes open to be respectful, only to fail in the end. He was just so tired and his eyelids kept drooping, sleep folding over him as a fog drifted over a slow town on a rainy summer’s day. Just as his head began to slip down the arm that had held it up, a knock came on the door. 

Techno jolted up, head snapping to face the source of the sound, only for the door to open a moment later, Phil following after the swing of the wood. He froze, eyes locked onto the man as he got a chance to see him properly for the first time in months, the first time without a life-threatening injury that had blurred his vision and stained his hands red in the process. 

Phil’s eyes softened when he saw Techno sitting at the table, leaving his bag on the ground and taking his shoes off to walk forward and lay a hand on the younger’s shoulder. He bumped his forehead against Techno’s head softly, squeezing his shoulder gently. 

“Good to see you up, Techno,” He said, a tinge of softness in his voice that he hadn’t heard from the man since he had been a kid in the Antarctic Empire who ran around stabbing at the legs of royal imbeciles. Techno nodded once, swallowing a lump in his throat as one of his hands reached up to grab at Phil’s, curling his fingers into the man’s rough, calloused fingers. He could feel each scratch in his hand, but it was so warm and it was _Phil,_ so it didn’t really matter in the end. 

Phil chuckled a bit, letting Techno make the reluctant decision to let go of his hand before he walked past the table and gave Tommy a ruffle of the hair, the man grinning a bit where he stood making pancakes. The older gave him a half-hearted nudge as he flipped a pancake before sitting at the table across Techno, the hybrid curling up in his seat as Phil shook out a wing carefully. The movement was jerky and it made Techno nervous just looking at it. 

His gaze flicked back to the ground as Tommy left a plate in front of the two of them silently, grabbing a small gravy dish of maple syrup and setting it amid the table. Techno gave it an amused look before his eyes wandered to the plate in front of him and he felt his stomach twist. 

It’d be rude not to eat what Tommy had so generously made him, but the taste of anything bread-like in his mouth made him think back to his little burrow and darkness and blood and hurting that made everything in his mouth sour. He would throw up if he really took a bite, but he couldn’t refuse in front of Phil _and_ Tommy. 

As a compromise, he covered his pancake in maple syrup, hands shaking slightly as he did so. The family of three was oddly silent around the table as they made their respective meals, Techno poking at his and taking a nibble out of a soaked pancake when he felt eyes burning into him. It was a skill he had memorized when he had been in exile with Dream, always having to watch for the man in case he would show up out of nowhere and catch him off-guard. Surprise attack training, he called it. At least it was helpful in the long run. 

About half-an-hour later, he had the fill of his pancakes, which had only been about half of one smaller piece out of his small stack of three. Tommy gave him a side-eyed look as he pushed the plate away, but didn’t say anything, clearing his throat quietly as he shifted in his seat. Techno felt antsy sitting at the table with no food, pushing his chair away before Phil interrupted, gathering the plates on the table as he spoke. 

“We’re gonna have to talk, Techno, don’t be so quick to run yet,” He chided humorously, stacking the dishes on top of each other and getting up to put them in the sink, leaving them there to dry with maple syrup sticky on the china. Despite the teasing tone of the voice, Techno couldn’t help the jolt of anxiety that made its way through him, settling in the pit of his stomach as he tried to swallow back the vomit that made its way up to his throat. He nodded silently, getting up anyway and shuffling over to the couch. 

A thought came to him in a sudden spark of energy, Techno turning back to the table Tommy sat at. He hesitated before he spoke up, cringing as he did. 

“Um, do you know where… Where my cape is? The red one?” Techno felt like a child as Tommy spun to look at him, shrinking in on himself. “Yeah, nevermind, I’ll just-” 

“It’s upstairs,” Tommy interrupted, an odd look on his face. “Give me a sec.” Techno nodded, curling up on the sofa as Phil came back, sitting close to him yet giving him enough space for him as to not feel claustrophobic amid the home. He was thankful for Phil’s insightfulness at that moment, calming slightly. 

Tommy made his way down the stairs shortly after, red material folded up in his hands and handed it to Techno, who took it with just-barely trembling hands. The man’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t comment, walking around the length of the couch to sit in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall with one knee propped up for his arm to hang on. Techno was just glad that no one was towering over him, far too shaky for that. 

“What happened to you, Techno?” Phil asked, breaking the silence first. Despite knowing the question was coming, he couldn’t help the jolt of fear that went through him. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind, regretting it instantly. 

“Exile.” Phil’s eyebrows furrowed, tipping his head to the side. 

“All this from exile? C’mon, Techno,” He prompted gently, the words working as an open-ended question. Techno took a deep breath, steeling himself as best as he could. 

“Nothing I couldn’t _handle._ ” Tommy barked out a laugh, startling Techno. Phil turned to look at him, hissing out a quiet word before Tommy cut him off. 

“Are you serious right now, Blade? Look at you!” He said, gesturing to him with a waving arm he watched closely. Tommy’s voice was tinged with bitterness as Techno curled into his cape, using it as a blanket rather than its intended purpose. 

“I’m _fine,_ ” Techno insisted, gaining Phil’s attention. 

“It’s alright if you’re not, Techno. We’re just here to _help_ you, you don’t have to be scared,” Phil tried to reassure him. Tommy shifted in his corner, though he didn’t speak up. Techno swallowed quietly, gathering up the slightest bit of courage to speak his mind. 

“It… I just-” He sighed, moving forward to rest his head against his hand. He gritted his teeth, speaking through them with words he hated to admit. “Fuck, I’m so weak.” 

“You’re not weak,” Phil replied immediately, voice stern before it softened. “You’ve been through a lot the past couple of months, yeah? That doesn’t make you weak. Just makes you strong for getting through it.” 

Despite the intent of the words, they brought forth a fire in him that Techno hadn’t felt for a while, a breathless laugh escaping him as he threw his head back to rub his face with one hand, running it through his messy hair in the process. 

“Strong,” He laughed, ignoring Phil’s growing concern and Tommy sitting up in his corner. “ _Strong._ ” His voice broke on the second time he said the word. 

“I didn’t feel that fucking _strong_ when I- God, what the fuck was wrong with me, I just let Dream take my things and- and he killed me, he _killed me_ .” The realization was like a gunshot to silence the room, save for Techno’s growing panic. “I just let him kill me, he killed me. He killed me, he killed me, and I forgot. I _forgot.”_

Phil’s hands came to grip Techno’s gently, the teen’s jerking in his grasp as the man tried to ground him, squeezing them minutely to remind him to breathe slowly. It worked for the most part, though anger was boiling in both Tommy and Phil at the words. 

“How did I just forget?” He questioned, voice above a whisper as he calmed down, shaking his head as he pulled away from Phil. Techno was glad the man let him move away without insisting on holding onto him. He didn’t think he could handle much more touch. 

“You alright, Techno? Want to stop?” Phil asked, the teen immediately shaking his head. 

“No, no, if I don’t do it now, I’ll… I’ll make something up so that I don’t have to do it later.” With a slow nod of acceptance after a bit more gentle questioning, Phil continued, glancing at Tommy out of the corner of his eyes. 

“So it was Dream, then?” Phil questioned, doing a good job at appearing calm despite the rage seething in him. Techno blinked, staring down at his upturned palms. 

“Yes. No. Maybe? I don’t think so, he… He helped me, sometimes. With… with mining. And food. When I couldn’t find any or wasn’t allowed, or-” 

“What do you mean, _wasn’t allowed_?” Tommy interrupted, gaining a confused frown from Techno as he fisted his hands into the cape he had slung over his legs. 

“I… I dunno. Dream just said sometimes I couldn’t eat, I dunno. Don’t ask me stupid things,” He brushed over it, Phil glaring at Tommy the moment he opened his mouth to counter the words. Phil flapped one wing encouragingly, nodding. 

“What else happened in exile?” Techno flexed his hands, watching the skin shift over the bones of his knuckle as he examined the veins. There was a cold feeling that grew in the pit of his stomach that he ignored in favour of forcing the story out of him as fast as he could. 

“I trained. I got good, got better with stuff. I think you’d be impressed, I learned axe crits after ages, Dream helped teach me when I couldn’t figure it out, and- and I, um… I- What else did I do? I trained a lot, I already said that.” As Techno stumbled over his words more and more, Phil got more concerned, anger getting overtaken by worry. 

“And... I made a house, yeah, I did that! But it got blown up after a couple of weeks. I don’t remember that well, just that it happened. But Dream said it was okay because he, um, he had materials to- to make a new one.” Techno’s voice broke off at the last word, furrowing his eyebrows as he stared at his hands. 

“Techno?” Phil prompted gently, trying to grab the attention of his youngest. 

“He killed me,” Techno repeated numbly. “And I just let him get away with it.” Phil’s eyes softened, something sad in them as he leaned forward to embrace him. 

“Oh, Techno,” Phil sighed, his voice in such pain that Techno couldn’t help the tears that sprang up as his body made contact with his father’s gentle arms. It was like he naturally wanted to suck the sadness out of Techno through hugs alone, and was succeeding. Techno found himself with blurring vision in Phil’s arms once more, a reflection of his time in his small burrow, though this time he was warmer and his soul felt just a tad less heavy. 

His hands came up to hook under his shoulder, pulling him closer and burying his face in his chest, practically tugging the man off of the couch in favour of getting close to him as possible in the middle of the carpet. Techno flinched as the front door slammed close, quickly being shushed by Phil, who wiped his face of tears gently from where he could reach him. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’ll be okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” He whispered into his hair, letting Techno cry himself out again. His heart clenched at the knowledge that this had happened to his son while he had no idea what had been going on, guilt immeasurable. Phil hadn’t known of Techno’s exile until it was far too late, and no one had been able to give him a location on where his son had been. Tubbo had seemed apologetic, though Quackity had been hostile and Ranboo unhelpful. 

Phil wished he had been able to be there for his son, to stop what happened. To keep him from getting exiled in the first place. If only he had been there, Phil thought to himself as Techno shook in his arms. 

Outside, Tommy beat his fists against a tree until they bled the same way Techno’s had when he first came home. 

It still wasn’t enough to lighten his guilt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys hope u enjoyed LOL i cannot do comfort at all. did this do good? is this good comfort?? i really tried hard to make it less bad, i think it didnt work. 
> 
> can i mention that i am so so so tempted to do a dream team fic about sapnap, george, and dreams friendship to the song ribs and just make it end with their friendship just fucking ending in the dream smp universe. it would b so depressing but i am still sad abt no friends so HAHA 
> 
> also, if u want the extra angst, listen to the song honesty by pink sweat$, its what the song this fic is based off of so i think itll help for the added angst if u arent sad enough :) thank u for reading, i really hoped u enjoyed this chapter <3 sorry 4 not updating the day before but CHECK OUT MY NEW RANBOO FIC IF U LIKE HIM <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / implied/referenced abuse

A lot of things about Phil and his usual way of living seemed to have changed, Techno realized. 

It had been about three days since their first talk, and Techno had reverted back into not saying much at all. The jolt of anxiety that came at opening his mouth made him feel nauseous and he preferred not to speak at all if it meant he wouldn’t throw up in his mouth every time he tried. The silence was unusual, even for him, but Tommy and Phil did a good job of filling it themselves. 

Tommy had gone out more, spending most of his days outside rather than in, almost as though he had been avoiding the teen. He always came back with more supplies, but he seemed antsy at the same time, so Techno wasn’t sure how to feel about the man. His eyes would constantly flick to the windows when they were in the main living room, and he avoided eye contact with both Techno and Phil. 

It was strange, to say the least. Techno didn’t want to question anything too closely, though. Dream had taught him that asking too many questions would end up getting him hurt for being nosey, and the last thing he wanted to do was to piss off Phil to the point that he got kicked out. Techno was so warm for the first time in months and he didn’t want to give it up for anything that would come around. 

Phil’s talk those few days ago about Dream had ended up conflicting him more than they did help, in the long run. He hadn’t even remembered Dream killing him, it seemed like so many months ago he did it. Every day spent in exile had formed together into a pile of mush that he didn’t think he could decipher if he tried. It was either explosions or sparring or beatings or starving, and everything had blended together so much that even out-of-the-ordinary instances were hard to differentiate in the grand time that was his three months isolated. 

Dream was someone that he didn’t like thinking about in the slightest, but at the current moment, it was all Techno  _ could  _ think about. He was in bed, for most of the day, and it was hard to find things to do when he couldn’t bring himself the energy to read or write or draw or speak. More often than not, Techno retreated back to his mind and tried to piece together the confusing timeline that was his exile. 

It was hard to figure out why he had been killed by Dream, in the beginning. The memory was ages ago and had been tainted by so many different things that the most he remembered was his things being blown up afterwards. That was another constant he made note of in his brain, remembering to note that down somewhere on a spare notebook he assumed Ghostbur had left behind. 

Techno remembered being scolded quite a bit, though he wasn’t sure if some of those instances had been real. As far as he knew, he just hallucinated them and thought they were real. Dream had told him he had a nasty habit of doing that, due to him being a hybrid. The trait never seemed to pop up in Phil, so Techno wasn’t sure how to feel about it, especially now that Dream wasn’t around to reinforce the idea. 

Dream had told him a lot of things, in retrospect. Their conversations were soft at heart but he could remember a few things that had just seemed off about them that he had never wanted to acknowledge in the short moments they shared for the sake of not being lonely. Dark nights had led to stories they exchanged with little inklings of things to know, such as how he was just a hybrid, and his family never saw him as more than one. How he would only be useful as a weapon in the long-run. There were more, but they had sunk into his subconscious and not into his memory the way they should have. 

Tommy always seemed to hate the mention of the man, even if it was just by Phil’s mouth. He didn’t think Tommy liked the idea of knowing that Dream had killed Techno, even if he might have deserved it in the beginning. It was a bit hasty of him to realize that had happened and immediately cry over Phil about it, the teen had realized. The man was almost always justified in the punishments he gave, despite how harsh they seemed sometimes. The lessons never sank in enough for Techno, Dream was just making sure. 

Yet there were still the nightmares that would follow the realization of one of his lives being stolen were enough to scare him away from trying to sleep by himself. Techno hadn’t gained the courage to ask Phil to come by his side when he needed the man, but maybe he would be able to make up an excuse later on. He could only hope that the man wouldn’t be mad about being lied to as Dream had often been. 

On his fourth day in Phil’s home after regaining consciousness, he made his way downstairs of his own accord, sitting down at the table and burying his face in his arms. Techno’s night had been nothing short of terrible, the room humid and his nightmares gore-y in a way that made him scared of the damage he could do to himself if he tried. His hair was unbrushed, messed up and left loose rather than in its usual low ponytail. He knew it looked bad, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

His eyes were closed, blackened mirage behind his eyelids building visions of lightning and explosions that made him squeeze them tighter, until all that remained was static and a slight ringing in his ears. Techno could hear Phil walking through the home and to the kitchen nearly an hour after the repeating ritual, pausing slightly in his steps as he noticed the teen resting his head on the table. 

Techno felt a hand rest gently on his head, resisting the urge to flinch and just fold over and beg Dream to leave him be. Phil’s hand lay lighter on his head than Dream’s ever did, a gentleness about it that wasn’t forced and made him feel more relaxed than Dream could accomplish. A wave of guilt had filled him as he curled his head up closer to him, Phil’s hand shifting off of it. There was no noise for a moment, before Phil continued walking, quietly setting up his things to cook breakfast. Tommy had made eggs the other day before going out, despite Techno not finding the appetite to eat them. 

“Tommy left earlier,” Phil spoke up, voice soft as Techno flinched slightly at the sudden sound. “So it’s just us for now.” 

Techno’s head peeked out from under his hair and arms, propping his head so his nose would sit on top of his arms. He didn’t let his mouth show in the case that Phil would be mad that he was upset Tommy hadn’t been there, even if he was odd nowadays. Phil hummed to himself as he continued making breakfast, slathering honey on two pieces of toasted bread and bringing them over to the table, handing one slice to Techno. 

“Figured you could try some heavier food,” Phil said cheerily, sitting down across the table as Techno remained silent. It was like the man didn’t even care that he didn’t want to talk, or that it was okay for him to just stay silent and not reply to anything with words. Dream hated it when he had done that. 

Techno didn’t bring it up, sitting up properly and poking at his food absently. He picked up the piece of bread with the tips of his fingers, feeling sick from just looking at it. The taste of honey was one that he hadn’t had in a while, but looking at him brought back old memories of eating it and it made him feel more disgusted than it probably should have. He tilted the bread to the side, watching it shift on the grain with a bit of disgust on his expression. 

Phil didn’t seem to mind the behaviour, chattering mindlessly to fill the empty air, leaving it more comfortable than not. 

“Tommy told me he was going to go see if he could find a Woodland Mansion anywhere, which doesn’t really sound like him, but I guess he wanted the extra security now that we all live together, which would make more sense than him just doing it out of the blue.” 

Techno watched the honey drip off of the bread and hit his plate, leaving a splotchy mess that soon pooled and covered more space on the dish. 

“I’ve been thinking of making a nether wart farm, but it’s so snowy that I’ll probably have to make a roof and I don’t really feel like building too much today, but I’ll have to do it sometime today, so I don’t think it’ll matter too much if I just end up putting it off more than I already have.” 

A fly was flitting around the room, seemingly taking shelter from the cold outside. It flew around the room and near his plate, grabbing Techno’s eye as he lazily followed it around, ears ringing a little bit more. 

“Maybe you could watch if you’re feeling up to it? I know you’ve been in your room a lot, healing up, but I feel like it must get boring up there with nothing to do at all, especially with… well, everything, really. Tommy hasn’t really been around to provide company, either, and I know you can’t just sleep all day, y’know?” 

Techno’s eyes narrowed slightly as the fly landed on the table, leg bouncing against the floor nervously as he tried to remain silent in the process of stimulating his energy away. 

“If you don’t, that’s fine, you don’t even really need to answer, I know that you’d rather just stay silent for reasons that I don’t know that I’m completely okay with as well-” 

“Are you mad at me, Phil?” Techno interrupted. His voice was raspy as he spoke, sounding broken in his attempt to talk for the first time after three days. Phil paused, looking up at him as Techno laid his cheek across his arms once more, eyesight following the open-curtained window.

“Of course not, Techno. What made you think that?” The conversation had turned into something gentle that made him feel vulnerable, even if he hadn’t meant for it to be that way. It was frightening, in a sense. 

“I didn’t talk. And you talked to me, but I didn’t say anything back.” When Techno said it out loud, it sounded juvenile, but the fear that crept under his skin didn’t alleviate it. 

“You weren’t ready to talk. I’m okay with that,” Phil replied, so simple that it nearly made Techno angry about the answer. 

“But I didn’t answer you when you talked to me,” Techno repeated, eyes blank as he stared into the snow. Phil frowned slightly, head tilting to the side slightly. 

“Because I know that you didn’t want to talk. I’m not going to force you, Techno. You’ve had a hard few months, I understand that.” Techno’s eyes watered at the last sentence, swallowing back tears and blinking hard as he went silent in an attempt to hold them back. 

“But I didn’t answer. And you didn’t do anything to me,” Techno repeated again, sounding confused as little tears dripped down the bridge of his nose and onto his left cheek. He rubbed at it uselessly, sniffing loudly as he tried to hide his crying from Phil. 

“I wouldn’t do anything to you even if you did something I  _ didn’t  _ like. And this didn’t upset me, Techno. It’s okay,” Phil said slowly, words comforting as he realized what the teen was implying in his words. 

“But I didn’t  _ answer, _ ” Techno repeated, voice shaky. “And- and I stayed in my room all day. I was being useless. And you didn’t do anything. Why didn’t you do anything? I didn’t… Why aren’t you mad? You should be mad, you should be yelling, not- not talking about nether wart farms and making me honeyed  _ toast _ .” 

Techno’s chin was wobbling as he spoke, burying his face in his arms as he hid it from Phil in an attempt to avoid the man being upset about the emotion that he was showing. He didn’t want to make the man upset, whether it be out of anger or out of sadness. 

He whined quietly as he heard the man get up, curling into himself as Phil came to walk over next to him. The man crouched down as Techno sniffed loudly in an attempt to wipe his face of tears in just a moment. At the touch of a hand on his shoulder, Techno shuddered out a sigh and ignored the man’s hand on his shoulder should he end up giving in to the comfort he craved. 

“Techno, I need you to listen to me for just a moment, yeah?” His voice was so gentle that Techno nodded, agreeing without looking at him. 

“I don’t know exactly what happened, but I want you to know that I will never be- be mad at you for just wanting peace of mind, yeah? I won’t be angry if you don’t want to talk, I won’t be angry if you don’t want to fight, you can just rest if you want, okay? It’s okay,” Phil said, voice firm in its delivery but hitting all the right places in his heart that made him want to cry more. It was just one point that made him want to argue more. 

“What am I supposed to do if I’m not fighting?” He asked, voice growing a bit angrier. “I’m- that’s all I’m good for, that’s what everyone fucking wants from me, what am I supposed to do if I’m no- not just being the soldier I was meant to be, I don’t understand, I don’t  _ understand! _ ” 

His voice broke on the last word, slamming his fist against the table as the sound snapped him out of his anger, looking up at Phil with wide eyes that held so much terror in them that it nearly made Phil cry himself. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was- I’m sorry, please don’t be mad,” He whispered, voice trembling and sounding tinier than it had ever been in his life. Phil moved forward to hold a hand out to the teen, who rested a shaking hand into his and flinched slightly as the man squeezed it gently. 

“I would never, Techno. Okay?” Techno breathed in shakily, nodding slowly as he wiped tears with the other hand. Phil didn’t push him, not going in to hug in unless the teen did first. Techno didn’t think he could handle full-bodied contact, but the hand-holding was enough for him. 

“I’m sorry,” Techno repeated, shifting his fingers in Phil’s hold as the man loosened his grip. 

“Don’t be,” Phil replied, thumb rubbing circles into the back of his hand before Techno proceeded to draw his attention to the man’s hand and away from the conversation. Phil’s hand was taken into both of his, playing with the man’s calloused fingers in an attempt to distract himself. 

“Do you want to go upstairs again?” Phil asked quietly, Techno shaking his head. The man nodded, humming quietly as Techno’s thumbs drew lines over the cracks in his upturned palm. The table was silent for a couple of minutes, the only sound being wind outside of the home. 

“Can I watch you make the nether wart farm from inside?” Techno asked, voice crackly as he spoke. Phil nodded immediately, letting the teen continue the movement as he got distracted by his fingers. 

“Of course.” Techno hummed, and that was that. His tear-stained face was wiped at a couple more times before he brought Phil’s hand up to his face once more, pressing his warm palm against his face in an attempt to bring warmth to his cold cheeks. Phil hesitantly brought another hand up to cup the other side, watching the teen relax in his hold. 

Somewhere far, far away, a group of four planned an expedition to find their missing vice president. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gang hoped u liked this i liked writing this myself. so sorry for the ending i know u guys thought it was over (ha) but ummm sorry i need more plot i want this to be longer and i cant write comfort for the life of me. still hope u enjoyed tho!
> 
> can u believe that this reached over 60 pages in google docs? me neither. tell me what u think, i will try 2 reply to comments today :)
> 
> edit: holyyyyy fucking shit 10k hits on this thank u all???? so fucking much?????????


	13. Chapter 13

Tommy’s self-proclaimed isolation had come to an end a couple days after Techno had broken his radio silence with Phil. 

Ever since the little breakdown over honeyed toast at their breakfast table, Phil had done well to keep the younger busy while making sure that it wasn’t too strenuous for his still-healing body. The nether wart farm had been built the same day, Techno propping himself up by a window to watch Phil make it from the warmth of the home. He didn’t feel like leaving the house that much, despite how much he missed wandering around without fear of what could go wrong. 

Deep down, he knew that if he went out and showed his face outside of the four walls that made up Phil’s home, Dream would surely find him and punish him for his insolence and running away from his generous offering of a burrow to live in. He had an… an okay time in exile, with Dream. Techno couldn’t put it down,  _ wouldn’t  _ put it down. He didn’t put it past Dream to be a mind reader looking for dirt to scrounge up and use against him. It was a habit of the older man’s to do so, even if he had been cherry-picking in some cases. 

There was one case that he remembered clearly where he had off-handedly mentioned missing Ghostbur, even if the ghost had been annoying. It was something born completely out of childhood nostalgia and wasn’t meant to hold much weight past the fact that he was being a fool who dwelled on his memories that should have long since been thrown away. 

Dream, on the other hand, had taken it incredibly personally. Techno recalled the feeling of a sprained wrist and crying as the man shouted about him being ungrateful for his company and using him for the things he would bring him. It had taken an hour for Techno to stop crying in between his pleading explanations and stuttered apologies that Dream had only begrudgingly accepted. It was one of his more recent memories, so he wasn’t sure why Dream had tried telling him he had sprained his wrist fighting the other day. It was hard to forget his anger. 

Techno let a lot of things brush off of him about the way Dream would approach things, now that he had the time to think about it. He never acknowledged how his food would go missing after the man’s trips to his home, and how his crops always seemed messed with. Even the few potatoes he had managed to farm at the end segment of his exile seemed soiled and rotten, despite his perfect track record. The food poisoning he got was enough for him to get put off the food forever, though. 

Phil seemed to be challenging his perceptions of Dream as well, albeit slowly. The man never pushed too much when it came to things he wanted to know about how the exile had gone, or if there was something he wasn’t being told. Even when Techno woke up sobbing with Phil by his side, the man only ever asked if he wanted to talk about it once before he had dropped the subject altogether. Techno couldn’t help but feel bad for the man over the week as he continued to show the same pattern. 

He didn’t deserve Phil’s gentle patience, nor did he deserve the kind words and soft embraces that naturally came with his presence. His age might have made him fierce over time, but it had made him more of a man for Techno to look up to. Sometimes he wished the days when Phil and he had learned to fight together, thinking back on the memories with bitterness as he compared it to how he had been treated now. Like he was something delicate. 

At the same time, he didn’t think he could handle it if the man had raised a weapon to him. It was something that made his heart want to beat out of his chest entirely. 

Nonetheless, Phil had been the one to challenge Dream the most, even if it was just Techno’s words about him. It had been Phil who gently questioned him if he wondered if Dream had been stealing his food when Techno brought up the lack of it one dinner, as well as asking if he really thought Dream was in the right for taking his weapons from him during a lazy afternoon. Techno’s heart squeezed at both instances, panic settling in his bones before Phil had managed to cool him off from what would have been hyperventilation on his part. 

Techno, despite how wrapped up he was in his own mind, could see how his behaviour was affecting Phil in the long run. He hated to make the man worry at all, and it was concerning to see how the smiles he wore seemed to dim and how he seemed more and more stressed with every passing day Tommy didn’t return to their home. Techno almost apologized before forcing himself to stay quiet, not wanting to draw attention to him. Phil didn’t mind that day of him being mute, so Techno had relaxed a little bit. 

When Tommy had come back, Phil had been making the roof for the nether wart farm that he had been preparing for all day, a box of nether materials in the shed by the home ready to plant once the roof was in place. Techno had watched him lug it home, poking at a few of the moving bits in the box before it was put outside when he noticed the slime that dripped from a tear in the bottom of the box. 

The materials he had gathered were carved painstakingly the day before, each stone tile made with care as Techno had read on the couch, wrapped up in his cape as he attempted to relax one of the only ways he knew how. Phil had given him a few old author’s works, mostly Shakespeare. Techno didn’t like the story of Romeo and Juliet at all, but he couldn’t help but read the book again, anyway. It had been years since he had seen a copy in person. 

Tommy had burst into the home loudly, running right past Phil as the man yelled at him. The man seemed frantic, looking around before his eyes settled on Techno and they seemed to grow more panicked. Techno flinched back at the look, curling further into his cape as the man ran down to the small basement, the sound of chests being rifled through following shortly after. 

“What the hell, Tommy?” Phil called, more confused than angry. A loud curse came from downstairs as the older man opened the door, only for Tommy to come out, potions in hand and golden apples cradled in his arms. He dumped the fruits on the floor in front of Techno, a couple rolling on the floor but one bumping into Techno’s feet. The teen looked up to him, eyes wide and confused as the man paused for a moment to make eye contact. 

“Technoblade.” The full name made him blink as Tommy pressed the potion bottle into his hand, getting up in the process. “I need you to drink that, and I need you to hide,  _ now. _ ” 

“What’s going on?” Phil demanded as the teen followed his instructions with shaky hands, downing the potion quickly as the taste hit his tongue in a sour tang and rippled down his spine in a cold wave. Tommy waved him off for a moment, stuttering through his words. 

“Just- One minute, make it look like he wasn’t here. Techno!” Tommy called, the younger flinching slightly but turning to him nonetheless, despite the man not being able to see him. 

“There’s a box, empty, by the front. Go hide in it. Don’t make a noise, your life depends on it, okay? Are you listening?” His words were quick, but Techno nodded, forgetting the man wasn’t able to see him again. Terror had locked his lips together and he confirmed by opening the lid of the box and climbing in, shutting it on himself. 

Techno could still hear him and Phil scrambling outside the dark, cramped space. The two were attempting to hold a hissed conversation, but Dream had done little more than taught him how to listen. 

“What the fuck is going on, Tommy? What was that?” 

“L’manberg. Coming soon, looking for Techno.” A pause and a breath being sucked in sharply followed. 

“You didn’t-” 

“God, no, what do you take me for? A little traitorous bitch? Have some faith in me,  _ dad. _ ” The last word was said more mockingly than not. 

“Who’s coming?” 

“Tubbo, Fundy, Quackity. Ranboo was going to, but Dream wanted him for something.” Techno wished he could ignore the way his heart leapt at the mention of the man. 

“At least the bastard won’t be coming along. How far are they, do you know?” A shuffle, followed by the sound of something shattering and a curse floated through the room. 

“Dunno, but soon. Ranboo messaged me yesterday that they were coming and I came home fast as I could. Wasted a shit-ton of Ender pearls.” A huffed chuckle escaped Phil at that, though Techno didn’t think it was because he found it particularly funny. 

“Do they know he’s gone from exile?” 

“Apparently. Couldn’t find him last time they went, and Dream told ‘em about it, offered them quite a bit to find him. Apparently threatened to build walls around L’manberg. Obsidian and all.” Tommy’s voice sounded bitter at the words, despite the vehemence he was showing in trying to keep Techno safe. 

Phil seemed to have noticed. “You’re not going to go rogue on me, are you?” His voice was firm and low, unlike the kind tone that Phil held with him. 

“Of course not. L’manberg’s-” Tommy cut himself off, breathing in deeply as Techno mirrored the action in his small box. “L’manberg is Wilbur, me, Tubbo, and everyone else. Not some fuckin’- fucking piece of land. Techno’s more important than some shitty soil.” 

A relieved sigh escaped Techno before he could hold it back, though the sound of it was covered up by Phil mirroring the breath himself. 

“... It means a lot, Tommy.” A scoff followed the words. 

“Don’t get prissy with me. Hide the breakfast plates.” The conversation broke off there, the next few minutes spent in heavy silence as the tension that had previously seeped from the room returned full-force. Techno couldn’t help but count down the time of the invisibility potion in his head, eyes locked on the hands that held another full bottle as he waited for them to flicker away. 

He wasn’t sure why the L’manberg council wanted him back now, but he didn’t want to find out. Techno wanted- he wanted Dream. Or did he? He didn’t know, all he knew was that he wanted to stay in the home where it was warm and be safe by himself where he knew nothing would hurt him because Phil would be there for him. Maybe he could convince Dream to move in with Phil, he thought hysterically, knowing that there was no chance the man would let Phil’s casual use of his wings slide. 

A knock came upon the door and all the movement in the home came to a pause before footsteps followed, slowly making their way to the door as Techno didn’t dare breathe too loud in fear of being caught in the home. He could vaguely hear mumbles outside of the home, but not too clearly. 

The sound of a door opening came, followed by an awkward cough. “Hello, Phil!” Tubbo’s cheerful voice greeted, the man sounding happy if not a bit tense. Quackity echoed the words, Fundy copying, though his greeting was punctuated by the added ‘Grandpa.’ 

Techno didn’t have to see Phil’s face to hear the exasperation in his voice as he answered. “How can I help you guys?” 

“Oh, nothing much. Just looking around for Technoblade. Have you seen ‘im?” Tubbo’s response was instantaneous, as though he had been preparing for this encounter for a while. Techno wouldn’t put it past him, shifting slightly in his box. 

“No, can’t say I have. Haven’t seen him in a couple months. Since you exiled him.” A wince followed those words, followed by another cough. 

“Sorry about that, Gramps, but you understand, right?” Quackity interrupted, voice playful as always, though there was something bitter behind it that Techno couldn’t identify. 

“... Yeah. I understand. Is that all?” Tubbo cleared his throat, sounding apologetic as he spoke. 

“I’m sorry, Phil, but I really can’t take your word for it, you know how people are. Can I do a look-over of the home myself?” Phil scoffed quietly, barely audible. 

“As far as I know, you hold no jurisdiction here.” 

“It’s for the sake of L’manberg’s laws, it overrides land borders,” Quackity countered quickly, shutting the man up. Phil sighed, stepping aside as the door creaked as it opened wider. Three pairs of footsteps entered the home as Techno quickly drank the second invisibility potion, quietly placing the bottle down on the ground. 

He froze as someone flipped open the flap of the box he was in before it was shut a moment later. Techno felt panic crawling up his veins so harshly that it made him freeze in the spot as he wished he could be anywhere else. It felt like a cruel game of hide and seek that he could never win for as long as he was in the room. 

Tubbo hummed from outside of his box, footsteps clacking near the kitchen. “Two cups?” 

“Tommy comes over now and then,” Came the smooth answer from Phil. 

“Speaking of Tommy, have you seen him anywhere lately? He was supposed to bring Techno back from exile in the first place, but now we can’t find him.” Fundy piped up, rattling around with something that Techno couldn’t identify. 

“He crashed here after a Woodland Mansion expedition. Sleepin’ upstairs.” The movement in the room came to a pause, all four of them pausing as quiet snoring floated through the ceiling to confirm the man’s words. The air in the room relaxed, the group of them returning to their searching. 

“Romeo and Juliet?” Quackity questioned, Techno cursing himself in his mind as he regretted not picking the book up beforehand. 

“I’m a fan of classics,” Phil replied, footsteps following the words before something was set atop his box. Techno relaxed slightly as he realized that it was Phil who had put the hardcover copy of the play on top of the lid. It would assuage the group of them from looking there if he was lucky. Techno wanted to hope that he was, so he crossed his fingers and squeezed his eyes shut. 

A few more minutes of this had followed before Tubbo had seemingly gotten bored, beckoning his cabinet to leave the home shortly after. Their voices floated back to the same place they had been when Techno first heard them come in. 

“Well, thank you for complying, Phil. We won’t forget this.” Tubbo’s voice was genuine, if not stressed. 

“Likewise,” Came the cold reply from Phil. There was silence before the door was shut, Techno listening intently as footsteps made their way away from the home entirely. He didn’t dare breathe, and Phil and Tommy seemed to have had the same idea. Techno’s lungs were burning as he counted down from one hundred, counted back up to it, and then recited the alphabet forwards and backwards. The invisibility potion had worn off at this point, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the lid. 

“...Dad?” He managed to choke out in a whisper, the reaction instantaneous. Phil opened the lid, sighing in relief as Techno shakily rose to his feet, stumbling out of the cramped space. Phil jolted a bit as Techno wrapped his arms around his waist before taking it in stride, his wings unfolding themselves and curling around the duo. 

A pair of footsteps came downstairs in a hurry, though they stopped abruptly before slowing down in their descent. A relieved sigh sounded, so distinctly Tommy that Techno couldn’t help but pause. He drew back from Phil, the man letting him go the moment he shifted in the case he made the teen uncomfortable. 

Instead, Techno turned to reach out a hand hesitantly to Tommy, who was standing at the end of the stairwell. He took a deep breath before releasing his grip on Phil’s shirt and curling his arms around Tommy in a heartbeat, face buried in the man’s chest to avoid the reaction he was afraid that would come. Tommy seemed hesitant, hands ghosting over his back before a quiet whisper. 

“Thank you,” Techno said, voice weak. Tommy froze for a moment before relaxing slightly, enveloping the teen in his arms as a hand cradling the back of his head softly. He hummed a quiet few words before rocking the teen back and forth in his arms slowly. Tommy looked up at Phil over his head, both knowing the same. 

That wouldn’t be the last time the cabinet would come around, but dammit, they were going to protect their youngest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was fun to write. probably unexpected by at least a couple of u. at least hopefully. hid something in there that might help u figure out where im going with this :) have been thinking about a twt account, too, do u think u guys would end up following that if i posted some art and updates? 
> 
> thanks for reading, hope u enjoyed (ps. can i just say that it is so awk to see people in my comments praise phil parenting when i am canon tommy apologist LOL love u guys :D) tell me wat u think i am extra proud of this chapters dialogue i am usually iffy about it
> 
> also tommy pog :) just had to give him some time to come around


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (quick note: i have a twt now come hang :) @far2early)

As the next two weeks passed by, the cabinet of L’manberg got antsier in their attempt to look for Techno. 

There didn’t seem to be a reason for it anymore, according to Tommy. Dream had taken the walls down after the first day they hadn’t come back, but he didn’t stick around in L’manberg long enough to catch wind of the news. Techno had unknowingly come between him and Tubbo’s friendship, and the man couldn’t force himself to stick around in good conscience. The last Techno had heard, Ranboo still wasn’t around for searching and there had been a tense air about L’manberg that he couldn’t quite decipher the meaning for. 

Techno, for one, was happy that Tommy seemed to have accepted him back into the family, even if it was selfish of him considering the circumstances surrounding it. The last thing he wanted was for his brother to end up losing one of his friends, especially when he was one of the reasons said friend was on his last life in the first place. The guilt that bothered Techno throughout the two weeks had contributed to his less-than energetic viewpoint on most things, but he didn’t bring attention to it as he did most of the other times he had gotten introspective. 

Dream was always on his mind, this much was a given. He had constantly been distracted by Tommy, however, as well as Phil and their bi-daily talks in the evening where they would attempt to unpack exactly what had happened in exile as he changed his bandages. Techno didn’t mind it nearly as much as he thought he did, finding his shoulders lighter with every word he spoke of what had happened. 

Of course, he didn’t bring up all of it. Only the important parts, like his training sessions. There was more than enough about those that he could entertain Phil with, mumbling a different story each night as the man did his best to explain the wrongdoings of that day to him. Techno didn’t want to listen at first, but it seemed best to pay attention to the man when he was talking to him, so eventually, just a few of the things that the man had brought up began to click in his mind. 

The first thing that registered was that he _ was,  _ in fact, better than Dream told him. Phil had done the most to reassure him of this, in some attempt to make him more confident in his own abilities after a day of listening to him lament about how weak he was. It seemed to have worked, at least for now. Techno found himself missing his swords and duels, spending his afternoons daydreaming about old Hypixel tournaments when he didn’t read. 

His prowess in Bedwars was something he had been reminded of when he came across a newer book Phil left out, flipping through the pages absently before finding a page of his own in the novel. Techno’s eyes flicked over the passage, finding nothing but praises and amendment of his skill in fighting and the art of the sword. 

All of a sudden, things start to get a bit more skewed. This book doesn’t sound at all like anything Dream had told him before, not in the slightest. His fighting style is detailed to a tee, sounding nothing like the impulsive way the man had made it sound. Techno had flipped to the front cover to double-check that the author was credible, only for his breath to catch in his throat at the anonymous moniker of ‘Firebreath’ that sat atop the leather-bound cover. 

Techno doesn’t leave the book on the table, taking it back up to his room. 

With one string unravelled, it felt like everything else was collapsing around him at the same time. About two days after he discovered the book, he continuously poured over his chapter, looking over the words again and again until he almost felt like his old self and he could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders lighten. Techno wanted to compare the feeling to the sensation of an intricate web falling apart at the first touch without one of its strongest bases. 

The analogy made sense, in a way. Techno’s first surrender came from knowing he was too weak to fight Dream, but the way he had been described in the pages of such a reputable source told him otherwise. The man didn’t even know him personally, nor did he know Dream, to Techno’s knowledge. He was one of the most unbiased yet professional opinions on the matter. 

It helped him sleep easier at night, but it proved to upset him as well. If Dream had lied about his fighting, he could have lied about anything. He could have lied about Phil knowing the whole time, about how his Piglin instincts overrode simple parts of him he never had trouble with before. The breach in perspective was enough for him to feel shaky on its own, let alone be confronted with Tommy, who seemed determined to break down any semblance of normalcy he had settled into in the last three months. 

The man had questioned close to everything he had brought up referring to Dream. He questioned the meals, the bruises that had long-since faded, the broken foot they had found evidence of, the nightmares he woke up crying from, there was nothing that seemed to be off-limits. It was off-putting but also… strangely comforting, in the long run. To know that Tommy was still pushy, loud and irritating with him despite what had happened. He had craved normalcy, but the man was simply delivering on the standards of how he was treated before the exile. 

It was comforting, in a way. Nothing against Phil, but the aching in his chest was often forgotten in favour of shooting back weak insults at Tommy rather than sit and think about how Phil was treating him so gently for a reason. He still didn’t think he was ready to face a sword in the face, but Techno had made up his mind to go outside. 

The day was bright, that afternoon. The sun was far but it laid in the sky in a cradle of soft clouds that had just cried themselves out, leaving the ground with a fresh patch of fallen snow that covered the previously torn-up terrain. It covered up the footsteps that came with Tommy’s constant coming and going, leaving them as a half-memory that wasn’t worth remembering. 

Techno had eaten breakfast already, forcing down some cereal and an apple slice before he felt too full to continue the meal. Phil hadn’t been bothered, simply taking the rest of the apple bits for himself as Tommy made himself an egg. The remaining morning was spent in his room, looking through his small dresser box in an attempt to find something to wear outside. He was greeted with soft clothes and hoodies, finding himself a navy blue one to wear. Techno had pulled his shortened hair back into a pony, rifling through his things before finding his red cape. 

It had hastily been put away in the face of the cabinet’s first visit to their home, getting put away upstairs for a while. Techno had left it in there, mostly out of numbing fear that came with knocking at the door at least every other time it occurred. He pulled it out then, throwing it over his shoulders in the regal way it was meant to be worn. 

The jewels it was usually adorned with were missing, as well as the gold chains that were draped over the front of his chest. He quite missed them, but he was willing to work without the missing weight as he slowly recovered. Techno could wear them on his first return back to official Hypixel arenas, maybe even something of Nox’s. 

It was something that Techno had secretly been working towards, pushing himself to be less scared so he could go back to his roots in the fighting. There was still a long way to go, as well as figuring out whether Dream would want to come with him or not. 

(The longer he thought about his plans, the less he wanted Dream to be there.)

Techno walked down the stairs as Phil left the home, on his way to go resource gathering once more. The man had gotten comfortable in leaving Techno alone over the past two weeks, nearly half a month since the cabinet had first come to search for him. No one was home, save for him at the moment, though the thought didn’t bother him as much as it would have a couple weeks ago. 

Loneliness and being alone was a difference in vocabulary he had learned to appreciate, and he could solidly say he hadn’t felt lonely since Phil had found him nearly a month ago in the burrow. 

Techno opened the door slightly after he had made his way downstairs, snow pushing against the ground directly in front. He looked down at the ground, sighing a bit as he stepped outside more, peeking around the corner to grab the salt that had been resting on the windowsill outside. The bucket was decently-sized, but not too heavy, so the teen took it upon himself to dust the ground with it sparingly, watching as thinner drifts of snow were soaked up by the dry salt. 

A few minutes of this had led to him putting off leaving in the first place, so Techno braced himself before stepping out of the home, breathing in deeply as he did so. 

The first thing that registered was the cold wind whipping across his face, leaving him with something of a grin on his face at the familiar feeling from only a few years ago. The second thing was how light he fell when he realized his anxieties were unfounded. It was relieving, to stand out on his own without immediately getting struck down or recognized. 

Techno could barely see Phil off, walking in the distance. He didn’t bother to call for the man, a bright grin on his face as he looked around, letting his cape drag in the snow freely as he stumbled out further. He felt more in his element, unusually high body temperature lowering to a normal rate as his breath appeared as smoke in the air. 

With a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision, Techno turned to it with the expectation of finding a mob only to be greeted with what looked like a person, meters away from him in the treeline. A wave of tension hit him like a brick in the face, barring him from moving of his own will.

His eyes were locked on the figure as he tried to decipher who it was in the dark. As the figure came closer forward, the tension melted away from him at the sight of a familiar yellow sweater and soft blue stains marking the hands of the man who floated closer to him. 

“Ghostbur?” He greeted questioningly once the man was in the range of hearing, the aforementioned ghost grinning widely once he caught sight of the teen. 

“Technoblade!” Came the echoey reply, delighted in tone. “It’s so good to see you, I  _ missed  _ you!”

Ghostbur’s hands floated up to cup his cheeks, squeezing together barely-there cheeks between his thumb and forefingers in a gentle movement. The hands were endlessly cold across his face, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, simply in awe at the sight of his older brother. 

“Ghostbur, I- It’s, it’s been months, where’ve you been?” He asked, concerned. Ghostbur waved away the concern, floating past Techno as the teen automatically followed him back to the home, the man speaking as he did. 

“Oh, just here and there! L’manberg all got busy a long, long time ago so I decided to go on an adventure! I made a friend, but I couldn’t bring him back. I think he would like you, though!” Ghostbur was endlessly cheerful and Techno’s heart squeezed in his chest as he realized that the man might not have known what had happened to him if he had left early enough. 

“How long ago did you leave?” Ghostbur shrugged, taking a seat on the couch as he laid his head back. 

“Dunno!” He replied, sing-songy in his answer. “It was a bit after you did, I think. But no one would tell me where you were, so I went to look for you myself! And… then I think I forgot what I was doing.” 

Ghostbur frowned as Techno took a hesitant seat next to him, the ghost floating out of his seat and clasping Techno’s hands in his. 

“I’m sorry, Technoblade, are you mad I forgot?” As Techno stared into Ghostbur’s eyes, not a fleck of life in them, he couldn’t answer honestly. 

“I’m not upset, don’t worry about me. What else did you do on your vacation?” The ghost lit up once more, jolting up where he was hanging loosely to clap his hands together. 

“I found so much more  _ blue,  _ Technoblade! It’s so great, I got to sing  _ songs,  _ I got to see the  _ river,  _ I- I, I got to ride in a boat and talk to my  _ friends, _ ” Ghostbur listed off, Techno leaning back on the couch to listen with his eyes resting closed. He was wide awake, but his eyes were tired and he would rather listen with closed eyes than half-heartedly reply with sore ones. 

After a while, Techno heard Tommy return, making his way into the home about a half-hour after their conversation had started. He had nearly nodded off before Techno was reminded of Ghostbur’s presence when his transparent hand went through his arm in a too-large wave. He felt the sting of it like frozen ice to a warm surface, eyes jolting awake. 

“What’s Ghostbur doing here?” Tommy grunted as he closed the door behind him, Techno shrugging as an answer before remembering the man couldn’t see him. Ghostbur answered for him at that moment, taking advantage of the empty space in the words. 

“I’ve just been back from a trip!” He exclaimed. Tommy didn’t look particularly excited, instead opting to nod slowly as an answer in the meantime. 

“You didn’t happen to go to L’manberg, did you?” He asked absently, not accepting an answer as he took his boots off. Ghostbur nodded at the question, making Techno and Tommy freeze at the next batch of words. 

“I was, I was going to! But then Ranboo saw me coming and he told me to go away  _ fast _ , I don’t think he was having much fun. Dream was hanging around, too, and he was all- all,  _ ‘Ooo, look at me, I’m scary and green, ooo!’  _ You know how he is…” Ghostbur rambled. 

“Tubbo wasn’t there with them, neither was Fundy. I miss Fundy, have you seen him?” Tommy didn’t bother replying to the question, looking at Ghostbur with wide eyes. 

“When did all this happen?” Ghostbur hummed, thinking. 

“A while ago, I think! I wasn’t paying attention. It was a little bit before he made big walls again, though. Ranboo was… was saying something, yes! I don’t remember what, though. It  _ sounded  _ important, so I wanted to listen.” Tommy moved to meet Ghostbur at the half-way point as the man floated, Tommy holding his palms tightly. 

“Ghostbur, I really need you to  _ remember.  _ It is so important.” The ghost’s face screwed up a bit in a frown as his glasses slid down his pale nose. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll…” With his eyes screwed shut, Ghostbur squeezed Tommy’s hands tighter, Techno curling up more on himself on the couch in slight caution. 

“I, uh… Ranboo was… he- Ah, yes, yes yes yes! Ranboo said, he said ‘I’ll come with you if you take down the walls, and then Dream said yes and then I got distracted by Friend, and-” Ghostbur cut himself off, opening his eyes to look at Tommy, who’s grip went slack on his hands. 

“What?” He frowned, looking between the two of them. “Did I say something wrong?” Techno breathed out shakily, locking eyes with Tommy as the man’s head turned towards him. 

Suddenly, L’manberg’s heightened stress began to make more sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gang i feel like this wasn't my best chapter but i wanted to ease into the butcher army arc the only way i knew how while also setting myself up for a spinoff. sorry if this seems awk, but also i am so excited for it personally so i hope u guys will be too :) 
> 
> to make it a bit easier, i will make a short timeline of fic so far, bc i think it is a bit confusing rn
> 
> first 3 months (chp 1-9); with dream, in exile. ends with being found by phil. 
> 
> first week and a half (chp 10-12); comfort stuff :). 
> 
> second half of month (chp 13+); lmanberg cabinet gets involved D: 
> 
> hopefully that helps bc i think i have been too vague in context w the fic. so in short this fic spans over the time of four months so far :) thank u again for reading hope u enjoyed ghostbur in this <3
> 
> ps. is anyone else ao3 messed up on mobile? mine is bein weird :P


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw / self harm and suicidal thoughts (referenced and implied)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twt is @far2early :) feel free to see for updates

As Ghostbur settled into the home while Tommy and Techno waited for Phil to return, the words that Ghostbur had uttered hadn’t once left his mind. 

Techno knew what Dream was capable of, probably one of the few that truly did know. Tommy had been experienced in what he did in public, in front of crowds when confronted with war and death and pain. Tommy knew of the Dream that made grand announcements and blew up a nation for fun and drove their brother insane. He had seen what the man could do with his words alone, and he knew that Dream was skilled at it. 

Techno, on the other hand, had  _ experience  _ with how his words could affect someone. On a personal level, even. It was hard to remember on some days that the man had been lying to him and that there was very little about him that he could take at face value. It was all too easy to fall back into the easy pattern of trusting the man for the sake of trusting him, or following his lead simply because he had been the only one he had for three months. It was hard enough to remember that Phil and Tommy really did love him in the first place, even if their reminders were frequent and varying in size. 

They showed it to him in the way Phil would make him breakfast and Tommy would tease him. It was shown in the way Phil kept his projects near the house so Techno could spy on him and how Tommy’s trips would shorten in an attempt to be home longer. It was shown in the way they took careful steps to treat him the same and accommodate for his learned reactions to violence and raised voices. 

It was something that he would’ve found pitiful if he had been the old Techno, but the old Techno felt like it had been beaten out of him, despite how he wished he could argue and say that he was the same person he had been all his life. Even that wasn’t true, Dream or no Dream. Techno changed when he got picked up by Phil, and when he signed up for Hypixel fighting rings and when he participated in the Crimson Trials and when he saw the way the Antarctic Empire hurt his father and when he was left behind again and again by his older brothers. 

Maybe it was just that Dream was the straw that broke the camel’s back; he was the one thing that Techno couldn’t handle, the one thing that would leave him to wish that he was a new person, the one that led him to try and burn his skin off every time he felt something close to fear and hurt crawl on it for too long. 

At times it felt like ants crawling under his kin, bugs making their way up to his limbs as he tried to shake off uncomfortable fear that clung to him with an ugly musk that wouldn’t go away, no matter how he tried to pretend the man didn’t bother him. The lighter he had stolen so long ago when he first came to Phil’s abode had been hiding in his drawers, the teen knowing he couldn’t use it while he was still healing. Unwrapping the bandages would leave it obvious and the burn marks would be even more so. The older ones had been healed and hidden under a layer of new scars that he could pass off as inflicted by someone else. 

Sometimes, Techno felt as though Tommy knew what was going on. The first time he had seen the thin cuts under his bandages, he had fixated on them with a gaze that held a carefully controlled fury that Techno had been terrified of at the time. Not to say that he wasn’t still scared of Tommy, just that he knew the older didn’t want to kill him or bring him back to L’manberg how he had initially promised he would do in the clearing. 

Other times, however, it was like everyone had turned a blind eye on purpose. It was as though they had decided it was too hard to deal with so the only solution would be to pretend they couldn’t see it in the first place. It was a solution that he couldn’t fault them on, despite how he wished he could just tell them what happened and ask for help. 

He hadn’t even gained the courage to tell them everything that had happened during his exile, even if Phil and Tommy had gotten the basic idea. The most they knew was that a lot of bad happened and it was Dream’s fault. They didn’t know of the long nights they would spend speaking, the long and hard and cruel training sessions that would break more bones than teach him. They probably just thought he had regular training sessions to balance out what pain was already there. 

It was probably this lack of detail that had Techno more panicked than Tommy when it came to the Ranboo situation. The older man had been panicked for at least ten minutes before he had gone back to welcoming Ghostbur to the home, catching up with the ghost that he had been so close to. Techno couldn’t even blame him for it, knowing that he missed his older brother as much as Tommy did, if not the older man missing him more. He knew better than to get between the two at this point. 

Techno had resigned himself to his room in Phil’s home, hunched over an open journal, the blank pages staring back at him mockingly. He was in bed, covers thrown over his crossed legs as he held a pen in his right hand, resting his weight on the arms that were propped up on his knees and thighs. He knew what he needed to do to convince them to help Ranboo, he knew what he needed to write for them to understand. 

Techno wasn’t an idiot. He knew that Phil wouldn’t mindlessly go after a hybrid he barely knew, and he knew that Tommy had barely spoken to Ranboo in the first place. He wouldn’t be the one to say that they needed to get him, despite the hero complex the man usually had. It was easy to predict their behaviour when he was greeted with the extra information he wouldn’t be able to examine through body language. 

All he needed to do was write down what had happened to him. That was all he needed to do. Word-for-word, no matter how many pages it would take up in the end. 

If he strained his ears, Techno could hear Tommy and Ghostbur in the room nearby, the walls leaving them almost completely private as the two conversed. He could just barely hear the strum of a guitar and he was hit with a wave of jealousy that brought him uncomfortable close to the childhood he wished he could live in with his own idealized version of how it should have gone. 

The world wasn’t anything perfect, and there weren’t any redos. It wasn’t a meticulous game of chess where one side would prevail above anything, there wasn’t a try again screen or cheats or clients that would make it simple for him. He had learned the hard way and he needed to make sure that Ranboo wouldn’t go through the same thing he did. The guilt might end up killing him. 

Techno took a deep breath as he looked down at the page, touching the tip of his pen to the page and pausing before writing out the header, underlining it afterwards. 

_ What happened in exile.  _

He looked at the page, reading over the words again and again before continuing, documenting everything in a clinical way that should have made him think back on what happened and send him into the same type of panic he had been in when he had first gotten out of his grasp. 

_ He took one of my lives after I set my spawn. He blew up my things in front of me. He took away Carl. I still don’t know where Carl is.  _

Techno ignored the pain in his heart that came at the memory of his prized horse, shaking off the salt that was rubbed into cold wounds in an attempt to keep himself as clinical as possible while he reviewed the words he wrote. 

_ He came back and blew up what I had. He tried to help me but I told him to go away. He came back again later and I went mining with him. He kept me company and I didn’t question it. I messed up.  _

Techno stared at the last sentence. He crossed over the words in a controlled scribble with quivering hands. 

_ He came back again. He told me Phil didn’t come because he didn’t know where I was. He told me no one knew where I was and that they didn’t want to see me anyway. He blew up my stuff again but I let him. He talked to me more and I didn’t push him away again. It was my fault.  _

Techno didn’t bother scribbling out those words, letting them stay on the page out of a need to apologize for his own actions that contributed to the problems. Dream wasn’t the sole factor, and it takes two to make something like that happen to him. He wasn’t blind to reality, and he wasn’t going to make a sob story of the three months, either. He would tell the truth because Dream never did. 

_ He made me think he was my friend. He told me about how he got betrayed like me. He tried to make me feel bad for him and it worked because I felt like I could trust him and he was like me. _

In a way, it was true, Techno reasoned, wiping at his slowly burning eyes in an attempt to prevent tears that hadn’t yet fallen. 

_ He hurt me.  _

Techno looked at the words, letting them sink into his bones with finality he didn’t think he would ever confront after being found in the pit. It was three simple words, but the weight they held almost made him want to break down over the pages he had already filled in. The journal was thin and he had made it a fifth of the way in before he reached the three words that would end up spilling a dam within him that demanded he spill everything fucked up that had happened. 

His writing began growing less loopy and more urgent as he scribbled nonstop, not looking back on the words he wrote as he continued on a tangent. Tears dripped onto the yellowed paper as he wrote, but he didn’t pay them any mind. It was now or never, it was now or forever to hold his peace and admit defeat. 

Techno was not weak. He was the Blood God and he wouldn’t crumble, not like this. Never like this. 

_ He starved me. He beat me, he kicked me when I was down. He left me bleeding, he left me weak, he told me he was my friend and it was for my own good. He told me I was exaggerating and I was being weak and I had to be strong. He told me no one would want me.  _

_ He would punish me for not having enough things even though he kept blowing me up. He would train me in full netherite while I would have nothing but a crossbow and iron sword. He had no mercy. I almost died under his watch. I let it happen to me.  _ **_ I let it happen to me. _ **

_ He didn’t care about me but I thought he did. I let him touch my hair and he almost cut it but I wouldn’t let him. He almost took my pictures of Wilbur I had saved but I managed to keep them. He tried to blow up my cape but I didn’t let him. I didn’t let him, I didn’t let him.  _

_ He told me Tommy wanted nothing to do with me, Phil wanted nothing to do with me. He broke more bones than I can count. He locked me in my home after blowing up the one I had built. He called it punishment. He wouldn’t let me eat in my prison, he wouldn’t let me keep my things.  _

Techno paused as he came upon the part he was least willing to write, panting at this point. Tears had silently made their way down his cheeks in small lines that felt tattooed onto his face. He felt them stick to his skin like honey to a leaf and almost felt the urge to vomit at the vulnerability he used to never show. 

He needed to write down the next part, humiliating as it was. Painful as it was. 

_ He found a chest of things I had hidden,  _ Techno wrote, hands shaking. The ink blotted on downstrokes that Techno didn’t care to be careful with.  _ He got mad and blew them up, even though I begged for his forgiveness. He didn’t listen, he wouldn’t listen. I begged him and he wouldn’t listen. I was on my knees asking for mercy and he didn’t give it to me. He left me to die in a hole by myself and he knew I wouldn’t make it out because I knew I couldn’t make it out either.  _

The confession felt visceral. Real. Too close to a truth he had wanted to suppress. Feelings he never wanted to acknowledge again. Feelings of hopelessness and giving up and letting inky blackness accept him in its forgiving arms rather than face the wrath of the world. 

_ He knew I wouldn’t make it out because I knew I couldn’t make it out either.  _

Techno reread the sentence until it seared into the back of his eyelids when he shut them to sniff loudly and force down another batch of tears. His chest rolled uncomfortably before grabbing onto a comforting numbness and holding steady as he wiped his face of tears. 

He wrote his piece, all he needed to do was make sure it didn’t happen to Ranboo. Make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else at all. Techno didn’t think he could handle the guilt if he let the same fate befall the other teen on the lands of the SMP, L’manberg resident or not. 

As Techno tuned back into the world around him, he realized how late it had gotten and how it had begun to snow once more. The teen got up from bed shakily, ignoring his numb feet in favour of stumbling back downstairs with a mission on hand. He had to talk to Phil, and he knew that man would have been at home by now. 

Techno made his way down the stairs, being greeted with a frowning Phil making dinner with Tommy, Ghostbur floating on the couch nearby, completely absorbed in his blue dye. Techno could already tell that he had informed the man of the news, so he didn’t spare any time to make his piece. 

“We need to help Ranboo,” Techno announced as he made his way downstairs, drawing the attention of almost everyone in the room. Tommy looked a bit shocked at the sentiment, though Phil was more concerned. 

“You’re still getting better, Techno. I know you want to help, but we can’t just-” Techno cut Phil off, something he hadn’t done for four months before he spoke again, voice more forceful. 

“You don’t  _ get  _ it. We have to, it’s  _ Dream.  _ You don’t understand.” It was Tommy who spoke up this time, no anger in his voice like the teen had predicted there would be. 

“Techno, we’re really just trying to make sure the bitch doesn’t fuck with you more, and for all we know, he could be best buddies with Dream and we wouldn’t even know-” 

“No!” Techno insisted, drawing himself to his full height despite his skinny limbs and thin hair. He had been practically engulfed in his nightwear, but he made his way forward with his journal nonetheless, putting it down on the dining table as Ghostbur made his way over curiously, peeking under the cover before leaving it at the look Techno gave him. It was almost fear, and Ghostbur could feel it viscerally, so he stopped. 

Techno paused, swallowing a lump in the back of his throat as he looked at the two who had stepped away from the stove and countertop, Tommy wandering over to the book and flipping it open, reading the header and paling slightly. 

He looked up at Techno, eyes wide as the teen gulped back his fear and nodded. He looked back to Phil, speaking with a shaking voice. 

“I wrote down everything. And…” He took in a shuddering breath, ignoring the adrenaline racing through his bones. 

“I can’t let the same thing happen to Ranboo, Dad. I can’t.” 

Their dinner was left abandoned as they shifted to the living area, the book held tight in Tommy’s hands as the first few lines haunted him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FUCKIN DID IT!!!!! COMEBACK BABY!!!
> 
> i had such burnout with this but i sat down and told myself work bitch and here we are i hope u are proud of me and that u enjoy this fic :)) i am proud of me for coming back to this after yelling at myself to just do it for the past week. i probably wont get back to the usual grind but im not abandoning it baby we back in business 
> 
> tell me what u thought!!! i always appreciate, will reply to all the comments i can on the weekend because my inbos is like eight pages long lol


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise :)

As Techno took a seat at the couch, he registered in a cold wave of fear just how terrifying it was to willingly hand over his prized possession to someone that he barely trusted a few weeks ago. It was as though he was completely throwing away his previous interactions with Tommy for the sake of trying to save Ranboo. 

That wasn’t something that particularly made sense, either, considering that he didn’t even know the hybrid. All he knew was that he had tried to warn Tommy of them coming over, and that must’ve meant he had known something. In all honesty, it might have been better to just leave the teen behind in Dream’s clutches and let whatever happen to him… happen. 

But something twisted sharply in Techno’s chest at the thought of it, something that made him wince and rub over invisible scars that would’ve dotted his chest under the real ones. Techno tried not to let the reaction carry over to Phil’s view, but the man must’ve noticed anyway, sitting next to him as Techno tried to move away from the rest. Tommy sat on the floor with the book, Techno keeping his gaze stubbornly away as he drew a knee up to tuck his chin on. 

It was something new, being vulnerable. It was even newer to admit his vulnerabilities, and something completely foreign to try and help someone with them. He might have been willing to do it once, with Wilbur, but that was before he had gone insane in front of his eyes and blown up a country to smithereens. He was pretty sure the man was using him far before then, anyway, despite it not being obvious. 

It should’ve been obvious when Techno’s first interactions with Wilbur after years had been the man greeting him and asking him to make a potato farm rather than catching up. Techno wasn’t a sentimental person by any means, but Wilbur certainly was, so this was new to him. It was always the eldest of the three siblings who would take photos and collect memories like spare change, so much so that they would fall out of his pockets with how many there were. So to see Wilbur and any chance of reconciliation being torn down was something new. 

His second sign would have been the way that the man only ever seemed to speak to him when it came to war-related things. There was the faint chatter and the less often than usual quips he would trade with the other residents, but for the most part, it was silent. Wilbur was never silent, not in the slightest. He was loud and energetic and a breath of fresh air. He was music and light and he was a songbird that would never shut up, but all he did was mutter under his breath and scheme with Tommy. Techno never noticed that Tommy looked as scared as he felt. 

His last sign should have been the day of his death, ironically enough. Wilbur wore a smile on his face that looked like his natural one, but something was off with it. It wasn’t Wilbur. It was like Techno was looking at a phoney who had stolen his brother’s face and put it overtop his own in a pale imitation of who he really cared about. Techno didn’t know why it didn’t register until after the sword pierced his chest that it had never been the Wilbur he had grown up with, as much as he wished it was. He didn’t know how Phil knew, but he hoped that Wilbur had at least been happy. 

It was weird, dealing with the grief of people hurting you when they were someone you loved and knew for so long. It was almost as strange as trying to cope with the fact that someone you barely knew had hurt you, but managed to make you feel loved in the same breath. Techno curled his fist upon his lap, burying the bottom half of his face into his knee as he tried to ignore the people around him. He could feel Ghostbur’s presence next to him, silent and imposing and everything that made him feel more jittery than not. He wished that he could tell the ghost to leave, but he knew that he would only be able to do this once, and if he heard Ghostbur ask one more time why Techno was so scraped up, he might have cried again. 

Techno took in a shuddering breath as Tommy flipped open the first page, feeling his stomach swirl as Phil reached over and put a hand on his leg, the one that had been laying across the couch. He gripped his fingers into his clothes tighter, trying to ignore it as he squeezed his eyes shut. He needed to do this. He needed to help Ranboo. He needed to stop Dream. He needed to give them a reason. He needed to, he couldn’t let it happen. 

Because at the end of the day, Phil was selfish when it came to them. He would make sure they were safe before anyone else and he would put off other things to make sure of that fact. He wouldn’t go after things if it put more than one of them in danger, and this put a target on all their backs. Techno was barely healed and he wanted to go after Dream, and Phil wouldn’t let that happen unless he knew that Ranboo was in danger of something other than a few bruises and some yelling. 

Distantly, he reminded himself that what happened to him was more than just a few scrapes and some teasing. It was hard to listen to that voice, but Techno let himself focus on it rather than the countless others he would usually push to the back of his mind. He could faintly hear them now, blending into the background as his eyes opened and he was greeted with Tommy, worried and holding out a hand to him. 

Techno blinked as the man sat in front of him, offering him his hand. He hesitated, not wanting to move at the moment. It was as though his mind thought he would stop existing if he didn’t move so much as an inch. Like he would fade away into nothing if he were forgotten. For a moment, he wished he could, but he took a deep breath and felt Phil’s hand grounding him and reached out to take Tommy’s. 

The man sighed quietly at the contact, seemingly needing it as much as Techno. He hesitated before opening the book again, and Techno could see his eyes flicking over the neat handwriting of the first page with something close to a clinical gaze. He swallowed back the bile in his throat and tightened his grip on Tommy’s fingers. 

“ _ He took one of my lives after I set my spawn. He blew up my things in front of me. He took away Carl. I still don’t know where Carl is _ ,” Tommy started, keeping his voice steady despite the anger that leaked into his voice after reading the first line. Techno felt something close to panic jump in his chest at the tone of voice he was trying to bury. If he had felt like this only a minute in, it might have been better to leave, but Techno was in too deep now. 

“ _ He- he came back and blew up what I had. He tried to help me but I told him to go away. He came back again later and I went mining with him. He kept me company and I didn’t question it. I messed up. _ That’s fucked up, Techno, did he really get rid of all of it?” Techno nodded automatically at the question, his entire body tense as his mind screamed at him to leave. One of Phil’s wings wrapped around his shoulders as he tried to relax, and he was glad there was an added weight to try and ground him. Phil was frowning, giving Techno a half-smile when he noticed that the teen was looking at him for comfort. He rubbed his leg again and Techno didn’t have the heart to tell him the touch felt like it was burning his skin. 

“ _ He came back again. He told me Phil didn’t come because he didn’t know where I was-”  _ Tommy was cut off by Phil’s soft, heartbroken, ‘mate,’ warbly like a bird’s song. Techno averted his eyes, looking down at his lap as he fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt. Tommy looked conflicted for a moment before he continued, voice hesitant compared to before. 

_ “He told me no one knew where I was and that they didn’t want to see me anyway. He blew up my stuff again but I let him. He talked to me more and I didn’t push him away again. It was my fault.”  _ Tommy paused for a moment. Shut the book, keeping his hand in it to index the page as though it weren’t just the second one. Techno didn’t look at him when he saw the man turn his head to face his way, but he was left making eye contact with Phil as a result. 

It almost broke his heart to see the man teary-eyed. Phil, who had been the leader of the Antarctic Empire, conquered countries and fought thousands, crying over him now. It was something pathetic of Techno, to think himself so important. He didn’t realize little tears were beading in his eyes until a rough thumb brushed them away carefully. Techno’s hand came up to grab at Phil’s, leaning into the warm palm of his father in a way that would never be replicated. 

“You know I would never leave you behind, yeah? Never. I’ll always come back for you.” Techno took in a breath, ignoring the tears spiking behind his eyes as he mumbled under his breath. 

“Wilbur said that, too.” The room froze for a moment before the sound of the book opening once more echoed throughout the empty space and Techno closed his eyes again, pulling back from Phil’s cradling embrace. He kept his forefinger curled around Phil’s pinky, not wanting to let go of the man. 

“ _ He made me think he was my friend,”  _ Tommy continued shakily, pretending that he wasn’t close to tears himself. The words that he read might have made it worse, eyes widening as he continued on and on.  _ “He told me about how he got betrayed like me. He tried to make me feel bad for him and it worked because I felt like I could trust him and he was like me-  _ Techno, what the fuck?” 

Techno flinched back at the words, not even registering Phil’s upset crooning as the man ruffled his feathers around the teen. He only leaned into the heat, ignoring the reactions of the others. Tommy cleared his throat afterwards, wary before he asked what had bugged him. 

“What d’you mean, betrayed like you?” He asked, no malice behind his voice. It was new, as though Tommy was taking the time to listen to his side of the story instead of immediately dismissing it as stupid. He shrugged uselessly, curling into Phil’s side slightly. 

“At the war. You all just… turned on me. Made a government when I said not to. Wil died. Felt alone. And then you got rid of me, and you were all- all happy about it. I dunno,” Techno tried to play the words off with a shrug, but at the flinch that Tommy gave, it didn’t work. The man opened his mouth, stuttering as he tried to speak before he snapped his mouth shut, giving up on speaking for the time being before gulping back whatever he was going to say. 

“We… Techno, I didn’t want any of this to happen to you. Not at all, not ever. Not in a million years.” Techno shrugged again, face blank as he let his chin rest on his knee, arms wrapped around them loosely, though his fingers were firmly tangled in his clothes. 

“You still just let them take me away. I’m- I thought you were my brother. You were ready to kill me a couple of weeks ago.” Techno tried to ignore the way his voice started to crack horribly halfway through his sentence. He shook his head as if clearing his eyes of tears before he sniffed, ignoring Tommy as the man stumbled over his words again. 

“You- I was angry, Techno. I’m  _ sorry. _ ” The words made him freeze, if not just for a minute. Techno let them mull over in his head for a moment, thinking back on Wilbur and Tubbo and Phil and Dream and every one before he nodded, not pushing the issue. Tommy huffed a bit before continuing. It took Techno a minute to realize that Phil was combing through his hair with pointed fingers in an attempt to keep calm. 

_ “He- he starved me,”  _ Tommy tried to continue, voice cracking on the first line as he read what he already knew had happened. Phil’s grip on his hand tightened ever-so-slightly, and Techno found himself squeezing back. He didn’t want to think about this, didn’t want to think about what had happened.  _ “ _

_ “He beat me, he kicked me when I was down-”  _

_ A foot hitting him in the stomach, gasping out a breath of air that he desperately needed before his fingers were crushed under boots and he found himself screaming for mercy that would never come-  _

_ “He left me bleeding, he left me weak-”  _

_ Choking on his own blood as he coughed up what would have been the blood from a wound in his stomach. Being slapped down as he tried to sit up before being forced to eat a Golden Apple just to make sure he was awake. To make sure that Dream could fix him up enough to hurt him again and again and again and-  _

_ “-He told me he was my friend and it was for my own good. He told me I was exaggerating and I was being weak and I had to be strong. He told me no one would want me.” _

_ Crying as words were spat at him, crying as he vomited and Dream held his hair back, crying as the man tried to chop it off with his sword. Crying as he rubbed his back as though he cared, the man rolling his eyes as he told him he couldn’t train today, he couldn’t. Being called a fool for daring to disobey and being punished before being told it was his fault he couldn’t just follow orders and listen. That people would want him if he did.” _

_ “He would punish me for not having enough things even though he kept blowing me up. He would train me in full netherite while I would have nothing but a crossbow and iron sword. He had no mercy. I almost died under his watch. I let it happen to me.  _ **_ I let it happen to me.”  _ **

Techno gasped out as a sob shook his body, curling up under Phil’s wing further as the man jolted. He didn’t open his eyes, but he reached out his arms in an attempt to tuck himself closer to the Avian desperately. He took him into his arms accordingly, pressing his head on top of Techno’s as he trilled sadly, trying to show just how sorry he was in words that would never come. The teen shook as he tried to gasp for breath that wouldn’t come. He didn’t see the way Tommy clenched his jaw, nor the tears that built up in the man’s own eyes, just feeling wetness on his head where Phil was silently crying. 

“I can’t- I-” Techno tried to get out, shaking his head as Phil tried to speak. He didn’t- It was too much, everything was too much. He didn’t want to stop and think and do anything, everything was too close and too big and not enough for him to realize that it was real. He felt like he was spinning and he didn’t know how to deal with it, he didn’t know how to deal with anything. Techno was a fool, a fool for thinking this would work and he couldn’t do anything right- 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Came Phil’s voice, shaky but still there. Techno gasped for breath again, watery cries working their way down into sniffles as he tried his best not to choke on his own snot. The teen didn’t loosen his grip on the man’s shirt, not letting Tommy get a chance to continue, either. It felt selfish to him, but he was shaking and he felt like throwing up and he couldn’t do this. 

“Read it without me,” Techno begged, voice strained. “Please.” 

Phil nodded at the words without question, smoothing down the teen’s hair with one large hand as he pressed a kiss to his head. 

“Okay,” Phil said softly. “Okay.”

And that was that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gang it has been ages hope u enjoyed this installment. commentors i miss u i will try to reply this time around pls tell me what u thought <3 enjoy gift from me


	17. Chapter 17

Phil can admit, and he won’t hesitate to admit it, either, that there have been times where he had screwed up in his role as a pseudo-father figure to his three adopted children. 

They never officially declared it, but the intent was behind the words every time they called him dad, whether or not it was jokingly said. There was a weight to the word that sat on Phil’s shoulders and brightened his heart in the same breath. He didn’t think he would do well without it, despite how he wished that he had been better for Wilbur and Tommy. 

The pair of them were some of his first mistakes, though not in the literal sense. It was more that it was the first instance he was able to see just how he had affected the world around him in a long-term way. Phil saw Wilbur turn from someone happy and satisfied with his life to someone who had gone insane and taken advantage of everyone around him in a vicious way. He had seen Tommy go from bright, open, and rational to selfish and unkind and wary of everyone around him. It was something that had frightened him, scared him to the core. 

Within his life, however, Techno had been one of the only constants. He had barely changed from when he was a small Piglin hybrid he had found in the Nether, face softened with the features of a human child. He changed in indiscernible ways and slowly, over time. Techno was never someone he had to worry about all too much, and the only major change was the voices in his head. 

In a sick sense, his youngest son was most reliable, despite how he had only been fourteen or fifteen when this role had first been put on him by Phil. It was hard to look back on his actions and see how they had a ripple effect on the people around him that he cared about. Phil had at least thought that Techno would be safe from this oversight, but he once again messed up in the calculation. 

He never thought that it would be Techno of all people that would be torn down to near-nothing by someone like Dream. Phil never realized he would lose sight of him so easily and see just how he had affected the teen that he cared so much for. It was hard to hear Tommy read aloud the pages of the notebook with some of his son’s largest vulnerabilities written out with him rock-solid and tense next to him. It was wrong, unnatural. 

His hypothesis that the teen wouldn’t take it well was proven when Techno let out a heartbreaking, choked-off cry before crying into his side in a way he never would have in front of Tommy. The other seemed to have figured that out as well, wiping tears from his own eyes as he left the poisonous notebook on the floor. 

When Techno requested to be left out of the rest of the reading, Phil hadn’t even hesitated to give him a confirmation, soothing him as he did so. He waited until the hummingbird-paced heartbeat that he could feel through his clothes slowed before he curled away from Techno hesitantly, giving the option for him to leave if he wanted. 

He wasn’t surprised when the teen stumbled away from him and ran into his room, up the stairs and shut the door softly. Phil didn’t move a muscle until the sound came and when he did, it was to look at Tommy on the ground, who was furiously wiping his tears. The man steeled himself, moving from the couch to sit down on the floor next to Tommy. The other didn’t react, simply shaking his head harshly before setting a hand on top of the book once more. 

Phil was silent as he opened it up, laying it to rest on Tommy’s left thigh and his right. Neither spoke as they read, Phil slowly flipping the pages, He was nearly numb to the words that he read through, finding it harder and harder to continue but forcing himself to, anyway. If there was anything Techno deserved, it was the promise he made of finishing the book he had trusted them with. 

This was something new for Techno, showing vulnerability at such a rate. It was something he never expected from the teen and something that he knew was near-impossible for him to come to terms with. 

Phil could feel his hands shaking as he read through the book, though he couldn’t tell if it was from sadness or anger. There was so much feeling coursing through his veins that he could barely tell if it was something that he needed to work on before he tried to speak to Tommy about what he had read. The man clenched his fist into his pant leg before he breathed out slowly, Phil’s feathers rustling in unison with the other’s movements. 

Dream was such pure evil. Phil didn’t know how to express it in words, but it was a pit in the bottom of his stomach that was begging to be fed by the pure hurt and blood of the man that had hurt Techno so much. He was desperate to lay his hands on him, use his bare claws to tear him apart from the way he had unravelled Techno thread by thread. 

There was despair, hopelessness, fear, so much written into the pages that were before him. It nearly made him physically ill, having to hold back a visceral reaction of vomit just at the sight of the graphic details that had flooded the pages of Techno’s confessions. 

When he came upon the last sentence, he had to stop. Phil turned his head away from the pages, wiping at his face furiously as he felt his cheeks slowly wet. He didn’t have any right to cry, not when he let this happen to Techno. Not when he could have stopped it. 

(A small part of him told him that there was no way he could have known what was happening with Techno. He ignored that part, telling it to piss off in favour of letting the guilt of failing all his sons turn over in his stomach until he could taste vomit in the back of his throat.) 

“Phil,” Tommy’s voice interrupted his self-loathing theme, soft and shaky and everything young about him shining through. Phil felt his heart clench at this as well, wishing violently that he never let the trio of brothers leave for these accursed lands when he did. 

“Phil, we need to- We need to… Talk. About. Well, I don’t know. I do, but, y’know. I- What does this mean for Ranboo?” There was a rage eating at his bones that rushed through him when the man brought up Ranboo, of all people. He forgot about why Techno had given them the notebook in the first place, turning on the only other person he could take his anger out on. 

“All that and all you get from it is, ‘How do we help Ranboo?’” Phil snarled, the words holding such an angered reaction that it surprised himself. Tommy drew back at the words, almost shocked before his face hardened in the face of Phil’s anger. 

“Did you forget the reason why Techno gave us the book in the first place? It was hard to show off, Philza,” Tommy mocked, fists curling up so hard that the skin stretching around his knuckles turned white. The man huffed, vision still clouded by red. 

“Just like you, to ignore Techno in need for L’manberg. Again.” The words seemed to be fighting ones, grabbing a reaction out of Tommy again. 

“Well what the fuck do you want me to say? Do you want me to drag him down and talk to him now? You saw how he fuckin’ reacted to reading it the first time over. What do you want me to do?” He asked, the words raw despite the anger behind them. The emotion melted away near the end, turning into pleading as Phil shook his head at Tommy. 

“Fucking something instead of turning it back to Ranboo and L’manberg!” He exploded, voice shaking as he said so. Tommy narrowed his eyes. 

“Well would you rather work through it with Techno now or make sure we don’t have two people to try and fix in the future?” He asked through grit teeth, voice holding little regard for the two he was speaking of in it. Phil flared up at them.

“You can’t just fix something like this, Tommy, you can’t-” 

“Well at least I’m willing to try and do something to make sure another kid isn’t hurt!” 

“And what about Techno, then?” 

“What about him? He asked us to read this to help Ranboo. Ranboo is in more danger with Dream than Techno is now. I hate to fucking admit it because I know that Techno is hurting and everything in this book is- is fucking pure evil, but Ranboo is with the person who hurt him right now. What do you expect me to do? Walk over that fact to spend another few months helping him?” 

Phil felt his anger deflate, something close to grief filling the hole it left. “Tommy, I…” 

“What do you want me to do, Phil?” Tommy repeated, voice softening. “We can’t help them both, and Ranboo needs us more right now. That’s just the truth.” Phil let his shoulders slump, watching Tommy take a deep breath as he pressed a hand against his chest. It was a familiar gesture and Phil found himself glad there was some constant in his life after all this. 

“I just- Fuck, Tommy. I don’t fucking know,” He sighed out, rubbing at his face as he took a shuddering breath in. The man shook his head again, not looking at Tommy as the man rested a hand on his leg, patting it lightly. 

“We can- We can talk about this later. We have to figure out what to do about Ranboo.” Phil nodded at the words despite the hesitance they held. He found it easier to confront the idea of a rescue mission rather than Techno and just how fucked the whole rabbit hole involving Dream went. _Three months_ , Phil reminded himself with something close to muted horror. Three months he had spent with the tyrant. The demon that had broken him down into little pieces as though he were nothing but a china doll to be played with. It was deplorable. Evil. 

“We would… Should we tell L’manberg about it? What do we do?” Tommy asked, sounding vulnerable for the first time in a long, long time. Phil gulped back his initial angry words, taking a moment to think. He tapped his fingers against the ground, finding his right hand in Tommy’s. 

“I don’t want to,” Phil admitted, feeling guilty for saying it after learning of everything Techno went through just for a chance at saving the teen. “But we’ll have to eventually. They know him best, and besides Techno, have talked to Dream the most.”

Tommy hummed in response, the way he did when he would be thinking of a solution to soemthing that seemed to be unsolvable. It was reminiscent of Wilbur and it made Phil’s chest ache for a moment before he pushed the feeling down. 

Unbidden, a line from Techno’s journal that had been burned into his mind returned to the forefront of it, echoing in an ugly way. 

_ “I begged for his forgiveness. He didn’t listen, he wouldn’t listen. I begged him and he wouldn’t listen. I was on my knees asking for mercy and he didn’t give it to me.”  _

It was almost worse that Phil didn’t know what had happened to give Techno such a reaction, not being able to see it from his viewpoint. His imagination was cruel after so many years in war and it hurt to imagine his son in a position where he would be brought down to tears and pleads for mercy that wouldn’t ever come. He took in a shuddering breath, pretending that he wasn’t on the brink of breaking himself before returning to the conversation at hand. 

“-Explains how stressed L’manberg people seemed, anyway.” Phil listened to him say, only catching the second half of his sentence. He nodded anyway, guessing what he might have said. Tommy nodded in return, something in his resolve hardening. 

“We’ll have to figure out where Ranboo is, then. Find him before we try anything. Figure out what happened with him and Dream. Any idea of someone who would be in Dream’s inner circle? I was thinking Sapnap, but last I heard from him, he and George fell out with the bitch.” Phil shook his head at the question, frowning. 

“Can’t think of anyone at the moment. Maybe if you have me a couple days to search?” Tommy shook his head, though he didn’t seem very happy about it. 

“No time, not with Dream involved.” Phil wracked his brain for answers before latching into something that he remembered clearly. 

“Fundy. Fundy’s engaged to Dream. I remember I was invited to the wedding before the exile thing happened.” Tommy nodded at the revelation, a bit of brightness filling his face. it wasn’t at all from happiness, more from hope  than anything. 

“Good, that’s good. We’ll have to talk to Fundy as soon as we can.” Tommy didn’t mention the problem of Techno that came up between these plans. He didn’t bring up the rest of the journal and Phil almost felt selfish for it before he remembered again why the teen gave him access to it in the first place. 

He would just have to trust Techno for now. 

A weak smile filled Phil’s face, a bit of his usual humor injected into him as he spoke. “You feel up to a family dinner?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 day in a row update pog? 
> 
> fr doe rhank u guys for not forgetting abt this lol i will be back w more content evenutually. i have a basic idea where i want this to go so hopefully i will b able 2 get there <3 
> 
> tell me what u thought! i see in morning. 
> 
> now is also good time 2 day that i probably won’t be replyin 2 comments all that much since they pile up and i don’t have much time either D: sorry
> 
> i still read and appreciate them tho!! they make my day a lot better <333 :]

**Author's Note:**

> glad that im starting a fic w 2k worfs a chapter so i dont feel as stressed :) hope u enjoyed, tell me what u think (also do people anticipate my fics the way they do itisjosh and eatenpickelsticks and people like that? have been wondering for a while since thats rlly cool to me)
> 
> ps. someone wrote this concept in a diff story over here! https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379673


End file.
